Second Life-Secret Episode
by Tashasaurous
Summary: Continuing directly from "Second Life"; After the revivial of Ventus and Vincent, Sora and the rest of the group quickly realise other Realms of the Dead are under turmoil, and this threatens to tear apart the worlds. Not only that, another Keyblade wielder is set to have his Keyblade, though not as people had expected, because he himself is being chased. *Second Chance Verse-2.5*
1. Prologue: More Than Bargained For

**Second Life-Special Episode**

 **Author's note: Sorry, I had to delete the new story "Second Being" because it's not working out as I wanted when I posted it, so I'm re-posting a brand new story, while Second Being is still in mind-development. This is a, let's just say, a movie-feature length special episode of the "Second" series.**

 **To those who had read both "Second Chance" and it's sequel "Second Life", welcome back.**

 **To those who are new, before reading this to avoid spoilers, please go read Second Chance and then Second Life first. Also, it is a midquel set after Second Chance, and a sequel to Second Life, before my version of KH3.**

 **Alrighty, let's begin. I do not own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy. Both rights belong to Square Enix.**

* * *

 _ **Prologue: More Than Bargained For.**_

 _During the events of Second Life(One week after the Remnants' attack in Radiant Garden)..._

The world known as Port Royal(Or the Caribbean, as some would call it), had problems before, and a year ago, not only cursed pirates attacked the town of Port Royal itself, but monsterous beings known as Heartless, and Nobodies appeared, siding with said cursed Pirates. Thankfully, a mortal Pirate, along with a blacksmith and a governer's daughter, aided by a boy with a strange key-like weapon, and two other companions, they saved Port Royal and defeated the enemies, and also sinking the cursed gold of Cortez forever into Davy Jones' Locker.

But long before that, the Locker itself had it's own ruler who was ruler of the seas of this world, and if one was not careful, he could also dominate the oceans of other worlds as well, for the Locker was a place close to other Realms none other wished to go to.

Having just bursted out of the water unexpectedly as one would never have seen before, a mighty huge ship surfaced from underneath the sea and now sailed on it. The age old ship, fish, seaweed and fungus growing on the wood, as if it had been sunk eons ago, but just recently resurfaced, was no ordinary ship. Those who believed in this ship, and would see it surface, would stand frozen stiff in fear and awe, for they would mutter the name of it.

The ship was not the only one that had a sea-floor-world transformation. It's crew, once men, now, hundreds of years, had slowly lost their humanity and year by year, day by day, would transform into much worse than a person losing their heart and become a heartless, worse than creating a nobody with no heart. These pirates are muten sea monsters of sea life from the waters.

But the most monsterous of all, was their Captain, who long ago cut out his own heart and placed it inside a chest, but not enough to cause him to due, or even, by either miracle, or just sheer luck, transform into a heartless and create his own nobody, but his current transformation wasn't much better. In legend, he was one of the most feared Pirates of the seas, and many heard many stories about him, having terrorized many, but only a few knew about the truths of what happened to him.

He is known as Davy Jones, the Captain of the Flying Dutchmen. A dealer of souls, a cursed man who is more cruel than most, and doesn't really keep his end of the bargain, once those who board his ship and were paying their blood dept to him, despite the only and only, 100 years, what's the point if you're transforming into these guys and lose your mind to serving this ship for all eternity? Especially since Davy Jones can only make port once every ten years.

Right now, the captain himself will only draw or drown himself into the darkness faster than expected, as of this moment, he was speaking with a youth in silver hair and a black coat, just after he sent one of his crew members a task to retrieve their next new crew member who's time was at last up.

"...And what makes you think I will join you, lad?" Davy Jones differentiated. He did not say that he could not serve others, unless one had his heart within the iron chest he locked it in years ago.

The young youth, who is Xehanort from the past, remained unfazed by the pirate's dementour, and said evenly, "You were there, Captain. In the times of the first Keyblade War, guiding those who fell into darkness into the Locker or the Underworld, did you not?"

"And if I did? I have no memory of such war, nor of Keyblades."

"For your memory was stripped clean of the war, I see. Yet, you gather crew members of those who would pay in blood to serve you after they bargained with you. However, this time, you might not be so lucky."

Davy Jones gave Young-Xehanort a skeptical look on what in the seven seas was the latter talking about. Sure he doesn't get a crew member of those who pay his dept all the time, for some of them are payed to be eaten alive by the Kracken. There was no other day for them to escape his dept.

Except this time.

"The Keyblade inheritence ceremony." Young-Xehanort simply continued. "A Keyblade wielder choose their successors by having them touch the Keyblade while holding it, allowing it's power to flow into the new wielder's body. One Keyblade wielder unwittingly had done so to one of your future crew members, and unless you kill him or board him aboard the Dutchmen soon, the Keyblade's power will react, freeing him from your curse and become a new Keyblade wielder."

"Who?" Davy Jones was still confused, for he had made many for the past thirteen years.

The answer he rechieved filled him in shock.

"Jack Sparrow."

* * *

Meanwhile, aboard the Black Pearl, having recuited a large crew of pirates, and a first mate he actually trusted back in his younger days, a year after dropping Will Turner and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Swann, meeting Sora, a fifteen year old boy who had the power to wield a powerful weapon called the Keyblade, which he wanted for himself, more reasons than just being greedy, learning about other worlds, the existance of Heartless, Nobodies and Organization XIII, Captain Jack Sparrow was in the cabin courters, studying the map on the location of his latest adventure.

So far, he hasn't had much luck. Feeling thirsty, and the cravings for rum, Jack went to pick up the bottle and drink again, only to discover that the bottle was empty, with tiny droplets landing on the table in front of him.

He stared at it for a moment, before asking himself irritably, "Why is the rum always gone?" before standing up, only to wobble and lose his balance a little, before straightening himself, and as if it was obvious, which really was, answered his own question, for he was drunk, as usual. "Oh. That's why."

Hoping to find more in the storage deck below the ship, Jack passed the sleeping/cannon courters where his crew slept in hammocks, some peacefully snoring away, their minds and spirits far into the Realm of Sleep, which neither pirate knew of it's existance.

Arriving in the larders-also known as the rum cellers-Jack wasted no time in walking through the door. But as he searched, with a lantern in his hand to give him light to see in the darkness of the hold, something caught his attention to his left. In weirded confusion, he made a face as a strange sea growth somehow grew in the racks of the rum bottles, which were now nearly empty.

Deciding to ignore the disgusting whatever it was, he turned his attention back to his search, and perked up happily as he spotted a bottle of the deliciously, skyward heavenly liquid. But when Jack pulled out the bottle, he was dumbfounded as he accidently tipped it upside down, and instead of the rum he expected, sand poured out.

As he was mystified on the meaning of this, a sudden voice from within the darkness spoke, issuing from nowhere, "Time's run out, Jack."

Startled in fright of the voice that spoke his name, Jack dropped the bottle which shattered into pieces of broken glass, before lifting the lantern to his face, before cautionly edged closer to the owner of the voice, one that he hasn't heard in eleven years. It belonged to an dear old friend who disagreed with the munity that befelled onto him, and died as a result.

Though it sounded distorted and aged, which was no surprise if one was still alive, but Jack was certain that the owner had died, so they shouldn't sound like this. Against the far wall corner near the barrels and crates, sat a man, skin pasty and pale like a ghost, with sea life strangely growing on the body.

At this glance and staring hard, Jack instantly recongised him. "Bootstrap?" he whispered in surprise, too stunned to say anything else. "Bill Turner?"

Indeed, the man, known as Bootstrap Bill Turner, or, in reality, known as William Bill Turner, the father of Will Turner II, gazed up at Jack, and smiled in sadness, with seawater gusting out of his mouth as he spoke, "You look good, Jack."

For the first time in his life, Jack Sparrow could not think of anything to say, as he just stared at his old deceased friend who had apparently come back to life, tilting his head slightly, unable to believe what was going on, his mouth gapped open in shock. Bootstrap frowned in confusion at Jack's shocked confusion, not understand what was wrong.

Finally straightening up, Jack asked with a furrowed brow, "Is this a dream?" for he hoped that it was. Last time he had a dream like this, if it was a dream, was about two weeks after he briefly held Sora's Keyblade before it rematerlized into Sora's hand, that Jack had witnessed a very strange dream of a giant glass platform, that was so bizzure, but when he had awoken, he had immediately dismissed it as a simple but terrifying dream.

Bootstrap gazed around, before answering in an almost confused manner, "No."

"I thought not." Jack shrugged, a bit disappointed, before sitting down on a barrel next to his friend. "If it were, it would've been a bit more normal than the one I had a year ago." he added.

"What?"

"Nothin'." Jack quickly said,

Deciding the change the subject as he said looking around, "You got the Pearl back, I see."

Smiling that this was at least one conversation he can talk about that makes him comfortable, Jack replied the unasked question, "I had some help retrieving it, by the way. A lad who now distrusts pirates with two companions...and your son."

"William?" Bootstrap asked, life showing in his eyes, before frowning in sadness, "He ended up a pirate after all."

"Except that he has your honest streak." Jack pointed out, before questioning, "So what brings you here?"

"He sent me." Bootstrap said, and when he noticed Jack's confused frown, he added in a tone of haunting whisper, "Davy Jones."

Still confused at first, Jack then understood with a nod. "Oh. Well, it's funny what a man will do to forestall his final judgment."

Suddenly Bootstrap glared at him with cold, warning eyes, leaning quickly and closer to the now rather stunned Jack, warning him, "You made a deal with him just as I have, Jack. He raised the Pearl from the depths for you. Thirteen years you've been her captain."

"Actually-" Jack tried to explain, but was cut off before he could explain the subject of the mutiny that would allow him to escape.

"You can't talk yourself out of it." Bootstrap continued, having known Jack's cleverness as long as he had man the man himself. "The terms that apply to me apply to you as well. One soul, bound to crew a hundred years upon his ship. Either that, or it's the Locker for you; Jones' terrible leviathan will find you, and drag the Pearl back to the depths and you along with it."

The realization of the path he had chosen, one that he told no one about, for the first time, Jack was horrified, and was grow more so as Bootstrap continued talking to him at this, and he failed to hide the look of fear. "Any idea when Jones might release said terrible beastie?" he asked, his voice slightly shaking in nervousness.

Bootstrap stared at him momentarily, before shaking his head and said, "I've already told you, Jack. Your time is up. He comes now." before opening Jack's left hand and slapped his fingers onto the palm, before closing it, as if he gave the normal pirate something, before turning his back to him and walked away, but not without a final word.

"It comes now, drawn with ravenous hunger to the man what bears the Black Spot." and with that, he vanished into the wall.

As Jack watched him go, he held up his palm, and slowly opened it, just as an ugly black spot formed and implanted itself. He stared at it, horrified beyond belief, unblinking, as the sheer fear threatened to devour his very heart which stopped for a few seconds, before closing the fist again. For a moment, he was undecided and afraid. Seconds later, he bolted out of the room, lantern and rum clearly forgotten.

"On deck, all hands! C'mon, move it! Move it!" Jack shouted his orders to the crew as he ran back up the flights of stairs, which his shouts of order, panic growing stronger and stronger, while the crew themselves were startled away, but none the less, followed his command and went about their orders.

"Run 'em! Run! Keep running!" Jack was screaming, as he quickly making a hand-made bandage to cover the black spot so that no one would see it. "Run as if the devil himself and itself were upon us!"

Mr. Gibbs, who was one of Jack's oldest friends from the past and recently picked up after the curse Pirate(and Organization XIII) crisis were lifted, asked in sheer confusion and complete loss on what was going on, "We have our heading?"

Jack cried out in fright, before panickly answering, "Run! Land!" before hiding behind the mast, before letting out a frightened squeak when Gibbs found him again.

"Which port?"

"Didn't say port!" Jack cried out, "I said land! Any land!" but due to how terrified he was, his words were in a tangle, before the monkey that once belonged to the late Barbossa swinged over and snatched Jack's hat, before tossing it overboard.

Gibbs and the other crew members noticed this, before yelling out to the crew in hopes to catch it, as the hat was another one of Jack's beloved importance in his life. "Jack's hat! Bring 'er about!"

"No no! Leave it!" Jack ordered. The crew stood frozen at this, and stared at him in disbelief, unable to regesiter if they heard right. However, he wasn't thinking straight and simply repeated, "Run!" before running off.

Uncertain for a moment, Gibbs then shouted to the crew to return to their duties, before creeping over to find Jack hiding behind the stairway, utterly terrified.

"Jack?" Gibbs asked.

"Shh." Jack shushed, staying absolutely still and had his eyes dart from left to right, from up to down, as if a Heartless were about to appear and devour his heart, sending his body, soul and mind into the darkness. At this moment, Jack was afraid of that as well, for he heard the warnings from Sora that if one were drawn too deep into greed, hate and anger, they would sink into the darkness, lose their heart and become a Heartless, and creating a Nobody. Despite being a pirate, Jack had been very careful in those emotions since a year ago.

Then again, fear was also part of the problem, and of this moment, not only was Jack a target for Davy Jones, but if the Heartless returned, since they were not seen for a year, he was also a target in having his heart swallowed up.

But he never told anyone about this, because 1), it was to keep the World Order(even if he didn't know about this) and 2), well, no one would really believe him anyway.

"For the love of mother and child, Jack! What's comin' after us?" Gibbs asked, having gone to whisper at him, and obviously having enough of Jack's silently and flightly mood.

"Nothin'." Said Jack, though it was very unconvincing.

Little did he know, that he was also bestowed a blessing that would save him from such a fate, and would soon become part of a destiny that was also life risking...one that Sora inadventertly casted upon.

* * *

Back on the Flying Dutchmen...

"So you mean to tell that this Keyblade will remove the black spot from Jack Sparrow and free him from his dept!?" Davy Jones asked, outraged from what he just heard.

Young Xehanort continued, "And he would also become a wielder of the Keyblade, if he continues to set his heart to do the right thing most pirates won't."

"Blast that boy with the Keyblade!" The pirate growled.

"Ah, but neither Sora or Jack know of this." The youth continued, smirking now. "And as long as neither know of this, Jack will be focusing on escaping his fate, and fear will no doubt be casted into his heart. As long as he does not know of this escape route, he will either die or serve you for all eternity."

Quickly understanding what the youth meant, and now realising that this may work to his advantage to prevent Jack Sparrow from gaining his very own Keyblade, Davy Jones smiled an evil smile.

And so, despite the demise of Master Xehanort, Chaos has escaped, and now Davy Jones, while unaware of this, continues to hunt for the mortal pirate of the Black Pearl.

But he wasn't the only one searching for Jack.

* * *

Caius Ballad, having arrived at the foot of the exit gate of the Unseen Realm, gazed up at the ocean in front of him, and at the horizon, saying to himself.

"Another wielder is soon to gain his Keyblade. One who must accept his fate of death."

* * *

 **A/N: Heh, talk about a long prologue, but hey, I think this is better than the previous one. Don't you think? It only occured to me that Sora had unwittingly preformed a small but possibly still plausible Keyblade Inheritence Ceremony and of all successors he chose...it was Jack Sparrow who, if Port Royal returns for KH3, he could be the second/third Disney character in Kingdom Hearts to become a Keyblade wielder.(Mickey being the second, and I suspect Yen Sid is the first before retiring.)**

 **As I said, to those who read both "Second Chance" and "Second Life" welcome back. Please review before you leave.**


	2. Not Over Yet

**Second Life-Special Episode**

 **Author's Note: Second chapter, at your service.**

 **I still don't own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy.**

* * *

 _ **CH 1: Not Over Yet.**_

 _ **In the Present...one day after the events of "Second Life"**_

Lea snapped his eyes open when a familiar voice spoke his name, as he had awoken from a strange but strangely familiar dream. Above him, at first the redhead thought he was looking at Axel, but then his mind cleared up a bit, when it was another familiar redhead, one whom is very identical to him, with some differences. But other than that, they would both be mistaken for twins.

"Mornin', Lea. And Tseng thought I was a lazy bum." Reno grinned as he hovered over his fellow redhead, before standing up straight to give Lea room to sit up.

When the pyro sat up, Lea resisted the urge to yawn, and stretched a bit. "I overslept?" he asked tiredly.

"Nah, I voulenteered to wake you up." Reno shrugged. He then frowned in thought, before saying, "Apprently that old guy-Yen Sid, was it?-wanted everybody to meet up with him on the situation about Chaos and...whatever the hell that other dangerous god is are up to."

Lea grinned on the mention of Yen Sid and said to the Turk, "Careful on what you say around him, Reno. He's pretty strict and is not one to take jokes."

Getting the message quickly, Reno sheepishly smiled and shrugged, scratching at the back of his head, messing up his messy hair even further. "I'll keep that in mind."

* * *

While waiting for everyone that had arrived at the tower yesterday after Xehanort's demise and the return of Ventus, Aqua, Terra, Zack, Angeal and Genesis, Mickey and Yen Sid were having a meeting alone, both discussing on the situation on the two gods who were banished years ago before things got as bad as it did. They added up on what Angeal has told them and summed up a conclusion.

Mickey, deep in thought and serious, had his arms crossed. "The gods who sought to destroy life or were deemed too dangerous; there was three of them. Hades in the Underworld, Chaos being created by millions of Chaos and Bhunivelze, who tried to destroy the souls of mankind." he thought, frowning.

"Indeed." Yen Sid replied. "Those three thought only of themselves and not of the lives of us mortals. They created such great evil, like Xehanort, Hojo and Deepground. In this case, the worlds are in grave danger if Bhunivelze would fully awaken once again, and Chaos doesn't realise he too is used."

This made Mickey mentally scared, but he held in his fear, and continued to be serious like he had been taught years ago. "So, there's gonna be a clash between the gods, and there's nothing we can do to avoid in triggering a war?"

His master was silent for a few moments, before Yen Sid spoke once more. "To gather more on our new enemies, we must first pin-point the realms of the deceased. The Underworld is no exception."

"Are they really more than just the afterlife and the underworld where the souls go to?" Mickey quired, though he wished that he didn't ask, but he felt that it was important if they wanted to know what Chaos was up to, and when or if, and he hoped it was just an if, Bhunivelze would awaken from the sleeping-death once again.

"More than just two, Mickey." Yen Sid grimly confirmed. "As you had heard from Cloud and those from his world, the Lifestream also acts as a spirital realm. The Unseen Realm, is far more dangerous. Souls connected to that realm are forever sent there and vanish into nothing-that is a realm that Bhunivelze himself created, and where one of his goddess creations, Etro, ruled until her demise."

Before either of them could continue the conversation, there was a knock on the door, causing Mickey to turn around, and soon enough, all of his friends at present arrived-Donald, Goofy, Riku, Sora, Kairi, Ventus, Aqua, Terra, Lea, Roxas, Xion, Namine, Isa, Cloud, Zack, and the new allies, Vincent, Angeal, Genesis, Rufus Shinra, Reno and Rude arrived and stood with the king, all of them ready for the meeting.

"Master Yen Sid, we arrived." Aqua announced smartly.

Yen Sid nods in gratitude, before beginning, "I am grateful that you are all here. Now then, it's time to begin the discussion of our new problem, one that I recently discovered overnight."

"What problem is that, Master Yen Sid?" Sora asked, though whatever the bad news was, he knew he wasn't going to like it. Apparently, both Angeal and Genesis were expecting whatever Yen Sid had to say.

The powerful Sorcerer paused, before looking at the others again, and the next thing he said sent shivers down most of the group's spines.

"All realms of the deceased are in turmoil."

Everyone present were shocked to hear this news, but none more so than Angeal, Genesis and Zack, while the others glanced at each other, some of them, especially Sora, Donald, Goofy, Roxas and Xion, remembering the Underworld, and the others thinking about the Lifestream, the Afterlife and even thought about the Unseen Realm they just learned recently. They turned back to the sorcerer, waiting for him to continue.

"You mean the afterlife and the Underworld are in trouble?" Roxas asked, stunned.

"As well as the Lifestream." Yen Sid confirmed. "I fear that the Unseen Realm may once again merge with any of the worlds, for the fact that Chaos has awoken. If these events are left unchecked, then the worlds are in grave danger, and for this, Bhunivelze may awaken once more."

Lea shifted uncomfortably, as he mumbled, "That's not a comforting thought."

"What's more, but those who are in charge of certain Realms of the Deceased, if not confronted by you all, may become allies with Chaos should he find them. There is also a man who has replaced Etro, who may be no exception."

"Just one question, sir." Ven spoke up, as he had missed out on a lot while his heart slept inside Sora. "Who is Etro?"

"A Goddess of the Dead." Genesis was the one who answered, which in turn had everyone else turn their attention to him, while the crimson man continued, "She was one of the creations of Bhunivelze, but had killed herself in grief, for she reminded him of his mother who died by his hands."

"WHAT!?" The rest of the group, except for Angeal and Yen Sid, exclaimed in shock, with horrified expressions.

"Hey, that's not fair!" Donald exclaimed.

"Wait a second." Reno began, not sure if he should believe what he just heard or not. "You're sayin' that gods _can_ be killed, only by other gods? Not that I'm a crazy believer and all that, but I thought they couldn't die."

"It depends on the power that is far too much for them, or say, should a god become mortal or in another meaning, they would be trapped in human form." Yen Sid answered.

"So...there's the chance that even Hades is in risk?" Zack asked, hesitated. "Not that I liked the guy, but that's just...weird."

"Immortality is a strange thing, and most cases of it are a curse." Genesis answered. "Humans can find certain ways to become immortal. However, the price is steep."

"So basically, this immortal stuff isn't for free." Sora sumised, before shrugging with a grin, "That's cool, because I certainly don't wanna live forever."

"Me neither." Lea agreed. Everyone looked at him skeptically, before he realised why they were giving him looks, and sheepishly admitted, "Okay, okay, so I do wanna live forever, or at least have my spirit live forever. I just want everyone I meet to remember me, because inside people's memories, I can live forever."

"I certainly never forgot you, no matter how hard I tried." Isa commented sarcastically.

"So that's why you say _"Got it Memorized"_ everytime you meet someone new?" Riku asked, puzzled.

Cloud snort, stating, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.'

"Hey, at least it's not like whatever else that can make people live forever, and I like my theory ten times better, thank you very much, blondie." Lea retorted.

That's when a memory triggered in Sora's mind and he perked up, "Oh, that's right! I know one world where there used to be a cursed treasure chest that makes people immortal if they take the gold from it." which also caused Donald and Goofy to remember too.

"Yeah, but them pirates of that world were cursed because the treasure is cursed and in the moonlight, they become all skeletiony." Goofy added.

"Pirates?" Ven asked, curious.

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that world where that crazy pirate friend of yours lives-that Jack Sparrow." Lea remembered.

"Who?" Ven, Aqua, Terra, Rufus, Cloud, Zack, Angeal, Genesis, Rufus, Rude and Reno asked in confusion.

"Isn't he the pirate captain of the Black Pearl you told us about, Sora?" Kairi asked, having recalled in hearing all of Sora's adventures after Xemnas's defeat a year ago, in which Sora nodded to comfirm it.

Mickey frowned deeply about this, concerned, and said, "Hmm...sounds to me that there are some worlds out where that have knowlages of living forever."

"Yes, the world of Port Royal does hold more than just one secrets of cursed immortality." Yen Sid agreed, which made everyone turn their attention back to him, as he continued, "However, Sora, you were not there long enough to know of the other secret."

"You mean there's more than just the cursed chest in Port Royal?" Sora asked, confused.

"That reminds me." Roxas suddenly remembered. "While we were trying to make our way to Disney Castle, we came across Port Royal, and this lady named Tia..something that Jack knows mentioned about another chest...except it doesn't have any money in it."

"I actually forgot about that." Xion mumbled, shivering a little. "That's where we heard a little bit about Davy Jones."

"Davy who?" Reno asked, confused.

Riku, Sora and Kairi on the other hand, had their eyes widen in shock, as the trio glanced at each other, unable to believe that Davy Jones is real. As young children, they heard many sailor stories about the Captain of the Flying Dutchmen, the most infamous pirate that sailed the seas years ago, long before either of them(and their parents as a matter of fact) were even born.

"Davy Jones, you say?" Rufus asked, skeptical. "I've never heard of him before."

"That's because you didn't grow up on the sea-side, Rufus." Cloud pointed out, before admitting with a shrug, "Then again, most of us didn't either."

"Wasn't he of the Captain of the Flying Dutchmen?" Mickey questioned, "I remember reading up about him one time a few years ago."

"The Flying Whatmen?" Zack asked, confused over the name. "Say that again, please?"

"We haven't heard that much, except that Davy Jones was in love with a woman, but I guess something happened to her that caused him to unable to bear the pain in his heart, but..." Namine paused, shivering as she still was too terrified of the story itself. "...But it wasn't enough to cause him to die."

"That part I missed." Sora blinked. "So, what did happen to him?"

"You're gonna be freaking out when you hear this part, Sora." Lea grimiced. "I'm still finding it hard to believe myself. But after everything we've been through, I'm willing to try my luck in believing in pretty much any crazy story."

"So...what did Davy Jones actually do?" Riku asked.

"...Uh, well...uh..." Lea hesitated, too nervous on how to say this, "How do I put it simply?"

Isa rolled his eyes, before saving his childhood friend the troubles of answering and told everyone else, "He cut his heart out and placed it inside a chest, but did not turn into a heartless or create his nobody, because he is still alive."

There was tensed silence in the room, that even Yen Sid was shocked on the news, though the Sorcerer shouldn't be surprised, but then again, he couldn't keep an eye out on all the worlds, and it's not like he can see everything that's going on within them anyway. He was a sorcerer, not a god.

"...Uh, literally, or figuretively?" Zack asked, uneasily. And he thought his own death and revival were scary enough.

Reno rolled his eyes, and said, "Come on, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. There's no way anybody would survive cutting out their hearts, let alone place the damn thing in a chest."

"One would think." Vincent muttered, finally speaking up for the first time since the conversation started. "Perhaps, just as Hojo had discovered a way to experiment on liveforms, and Xehanort to implant pieces of his heart into twelve vessels, Davy Jones discovered a way to keep himself alive while placing his heart inside a chest."

"So...he's like when Xehanort split himself up and turned into a heartless?" Aqua questioned.

"And managed to place his heart inside me." Terra added, still haunted in the memories of Xehanort taking over his body.

Sora shook his head in disbelief at this, and protested, "But that's crazy! Even if he managed to do that, the darkness would've consumed his heart and turned him into a heartless!"

"Oh, it gets even better." Lea laughed incrediously. "Apparently, from what the five of us heard," he gestured at himself, Isa, Roxas, Xion and Namie, before continued, "Davy Jones has a giant octopus for a pet that goes around eating people and dragging down ships into the ocean." shuddering at Gibbs's description.

He then paused, before looking at Isa, asking as he couldn't remember the name of the said giant octopus, "What was the name of the giant squid again?"

"I think it was the Kracken." Roxas thought, and at Namine and Xion's nods, the blonde-haired teen nodded, convinced, "Yeah, it was the Kracken."

"Right. I knew it." Lea smiled, pretending that he knew.

Still, it wasn't comforting news, as even Rufus and Vincent were quite disturbed by the knowlage of the Kracken's existance. Reno and Rude glanced at each other nervously, Zack and Cloud both looked like they were about to be sick, Angeal and Genesis groaned, which this knowlage just adds to everything else, Sora and Ven both shuddered in fear, Kairi was rubbing her upper arms, Riku just stood blankly, Terra and Aqua shared a concerned glance, and Mickey, Donald and Goofy all gulped nervously.

"Uh, how'd you know about this?" Riku asked.

"We met up with that crazy Pirate Jack Sparrow on our way to Disney Castle." Roxas explained, "Xion, well...she uh..."

Xion sighed, before glancing apologetically at Ven and said to everyone, "I've been seeing Ven's dreams and I passed out, terrified while we were on our way. The others took me to that world where Jack Sparrow lives so I could quickly recover."

"Yeah, but since I was stupid, at first, that black ship of that guy's was ported on an island which uh..." Lea shivered, not liking to recall that horribile experience of the Isle of Dead-Meat. "...Was inhabitited full of cannibals."

Everyone either groaned, or looked sick, or in Donald's case, fainted.

"Wait a second." Sora blinked, "What was the Black Pearl doing on an island full of cannibals?"

"Blame that stupid pirate friend of yours." Isa grumbled, "And even Shelke and her sister for capturing us and offering us to the cannibals."

"But that's another story." Lea quickly intervened, "Anyway, we managed to get out with those Pirates safely, and well, I guess that world was having some problems that has that pirate guy one someone's dislike list in arresting that blacksmith guy and his girlfriend."

"WHAT!?" Sora, Donald(who woke up seconds later) and Goofy exclaimed as they realised by these words that Will and Elizabeth were arrested.

"And I thought the Underworld was having some major issues lately." Zack groaned.

"Then perhaps we should set off to both Olympus Coliseum and Port Royal at all haste." Genesis suggested, with a concerned frown. "These could get the attention of Chaos."

"I would like to return to Edge for further investigation." Rufus added.

"Then maybe we should split up into teams and decide who goes with and who goes to which world." Sora decided. "I'll head over to Port Royal. I don't trust pirates, but Will and Elizabeth are friends and I'm worried about them. Jack, well...uh...he can take care of himself."

Lea, Isa, Roxas, Xion and Namine all looked at each other, concerned both at Sora's gullibleness, and remembering a certain black spot on Jack Sparrow's left hand, for neither of them still knew much about that, and wondered if they should tell Sora and the others about this or not. If that lady, Tia Dalma gave Jack a lousy jar of dirt to protect him from Davy Jones, then it was obvious that even Jack was in serious trouble.

"I'm comin' with ya' Sora!" Goofy added.

"Me too!" Donald added.

"Think I might head back to the Coliseum. I know that place a bit better." Zack decided.

"I'll go with you." Cloud decided to his friend, "I'm not losing you again, Zack."

"I will head back to Midgar to inform Reeve about the situation." Vincent decinded.

"I'll go with Zack and Cloud to the Coliseum." Riku decided, much to his friends' surprise, before he pointed out, "I still owe Hercules an apology since I've been there before." to which Sora and Kairi both realised what he meant and nodded.

"I'll go to the Coliseum too. I've been there before." Aqua declared, "And if Hades knows something about Bhunivelze that we don't, and even though he can't be trusted, we have to get answers out of him."

"I'll go with you." Terra nodded, "I still need to give Hades a piece of my mind."

"I'm going with Sora." Kairi declared, and at everyone's surprised looks, and Sora's grave concern look, the Princess of Heart stared at him sternly, adding before he could say something like that she shouldn't go, "And don't think you can convince me to stay put! I can fight now too, you know, so I won't be in your way, promise."

Sora blushed, feeling awkward yet still worried and couldn't help but think of the worse case scenario, as he still remembered that he admitted to Kairi two years ago that she'd be in his way when he left to try and save Riku while defeating Ansem. And while Kairi has grown and was actually pretty well skilled for she made her point clear that she refused to be a helpess damsel in distress anymore, Sora didn't want to risk the safety of his friend, or any of his friends, really.

But the look on Kairi's face told him that she wasn't giving in this time.

Despite Aqua's look that said that Kairi should not go, Sora sighed in defeat, and said, "Okay, you win this time. But if anything happened to you or anyone else, I'd never forgive myself. If the situation gets too dangerous, I want you to get yourself to safety, alright?"

"I'll try, but I can't make any promises." Kairi smiled, "I don't want to lose your or Riku again, Sora. It was hard enough for me to wait for you guys to come home for a year."

"Sounds like your girlfriend's gotten to the point of not wanting to leave you out of her sight, man." Reno teased, causing both Sora and Kairi to blush at this. Thankfully, the two teens were saved by any more embarrassment when Rude slapped upward on the back of Reno's head, causing the red-haired Turk to grunt, "Ow!"

"She's not my girlfriend! We're just friends!" Sora protested, his face turning dark pink.

"I'm not his girlfriend! We're just friends!" Kairi protested at the same time as Sora did, her face turning dark pink.

Yen Sid, Rufus, Angeal, Genesis, Vincent and Cloud all groaned, all of then pinching the bridge of their noses in exasperation. Even Mickey sighed in annoyance, shaking his head at the scene before him.

"This is exasperating." Donald grumbled.

"Indeed." Rufus agreed.

"So, where does this leave the rest of us?" Lea shrugged.

"I'll go with to Olympus Coliseum. I've been there a few times before." Mickey decided.

"Then perhaps two teams should be this." Yen Sid concluded, glancing at the group who turned their attention back to him, making up his mind. "Sora, Donald, Goofy, Kairi, you will take Ventus, Lea and Xion with you to Port Royal; Mickey, Riku, Cloud, Zack, and Aqua, you will take Terra and Isa with you. Roxas will both go with Vincent, President Rufus and the Turks to Midgar to learn more about the Lifestream. Namine, you will return to Radiant Garden to inform the Restoation Committee of the dangers." and while some of the group agreed to this, Lea and Roxas grumbled that they would be separated from the rest of their best friends, and while Isa didn't like this idea either, there was not much they could do.

"We'll meet up with each other at whatever world we'll still be at." Sora decided.

"Right." Mickey agreed, "But we'd better be careful. Who knows what we'll find in each of the worlds."

"Fine, let's do this then." Lea sighed, not looking foward in going back to Port Royal with only Xion. He knew that this trip was going to suck, especially since he'd bee worrying himself into a nervous wreck about Isa, Roxas and Namine.

"Hey, I'm thinkin' that maybe we should interrogate the two sisters back at WRO. They might know something that we don't." Reno suggested, remembering both Shelke and Shalua who were both arrested for kidnapping Namine earlier.

"Agreed. Let's get a move on." Vincent declared.

"I'll go with to the Coliseum." Angeal declared.

"Then I suppose I shall go to Radiant Garden with Namine." Genesis added.

"Be warned, all of you." Yen Sid cautioned, "The dangers are not yet over, and who knows what other kind of threat may pose to you all. Be vigilant."

Everyone nods in agreement. So it didn't take long for Sora, Kairi, Ven, Lea, Xion, Donald and Goofy to get into the Gummiship to head other back towards Port Royal. Riku's group decided to take a quick trip to Radiant Garden since they realised that Aqua's Keyblade and armor were left there, as Terra recalled for being stuck trapped in Xehanort's heart twelve years earlier. Mickey teleported Rufus, the Turks, Vincent and Namine back to Midgar, promising to rejoin Riku's group as soon as possible.

However, no one knew what other danger that was slowly approaching.

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry that it's late. No excuses for me here. Probably not the best chapter, but I'm finding myself wanting to start up my version of KH3, but one never knows.**


	3. Do Not Underestimate

**Author's Note: Welcome to chapter 3.**

 **I still don't own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy.**

* * *

 _ **CH 2: Do Not Underestimate.**_

Meanwhile, back in the world of Caribbean, rained poured from the dark sky of night in great sheets and torrents. Lightning flashed brightly, though it did little to the world below. The growing distant thunder followed each flash of lightning, roaring like bombs.

Since the days of leaving the island that was both the home of Cannibals on one side, and Tia Dalma, the Voodoo woman on the other side, the Black Pearl reached it's destination where the Flying Dutchmen was supposed to be.

Or...what was supposed to be the Flying Dutchmen anyway. Will Turner gazed at a ship wreck in a distance on the hardboard deck of the Black Pearl. The ship in the distance must've hit the rocks at some point, which resembled to the crab claws Tia Dalma had thrown before Sora's four new friends, Lea, Isa, Roxas, Xion and Namine had left to...wherever they were going. Not that the five otherworldly people's destinations were Jack Sparrow's concern at the moment. He had more important things to worry about.

Will continued to stare out of the distance, before turning to Jack with strong skepticism, with a look that said, ' _Really?_ ', and asked, " _That's_ the Flying Dutchmen?"

Gibbs nodded, while Jack fingered his face, before withdrawing his hand.

"She doesn't look like much." Said Will, stating the obvious as he turned to gaze at the wreckage again.

"Neither do you." replied Jack, as he and Gibbs joined him at the side. "Do not underestimate her."

There was a moment of silence, and Jack, realising that Gibbs wasn't joining in the conversation, elbowed him, causing his first mate to sputter quickly, "Must 'ave run afoul of the reef."

"So what's your plan then?" Jack questioned to Will.

Will, who knew that something was up, but also knew that it was too late to back down now, and that he had to make sure that whether this was the Flying Dutchmen or not, though he always had a plan in many of his situations, for he hoped to rescue Elizabeth.

So, he answered in strong annoyance, "I row over, search the ship until I found your bloodly key."

"And if there were either a crewmen or those black thingies from a year ago?" Jack inquired, also referencing on the Heartless.

"I cut down anything in my path." was Will's deadly and earnest reply, before walking away to get ready.

Jack considered the plan for a moment, before saying, "I like it. Simple, easy to remember."

Though neither one were even willing to bet that something else was about to happen. As Jack watched Will climb down one of the long boats that was lowered for the young man to use, the pirate Captain decided to have one last word to him, calling to him, "Oi! If you happen to get captured, just say _"Jack Sparrow sent you to serve 'is dept"_. Might save your life."

As the Pirates watched Will row away, as Ragetti hollered to the younger man, "Bon Voyage!" cackling.

Once Will was out of earsdrop, Jack ordered Gibbs quietly, "Douse the lamps." which the latter and the other Pirates did as they were told.

Normally, when it came to the Heartless ever since a year ago in the Organziation XIII crisis, Jack had been wary in having the lamps doused at nighttime, somewhat worried that even in the slight darkness of night, the Heartless would jump out and easily capture their hearts. But in this situation, though reluctanted at first, the captain knew, there was little choice.

* * *

Will had climbed on the wreckage of the ship which was split in half at some point, everything in a complete mess, as though it were attacked by something more monsterous than just a simple giant Heartless he'd seen Jack, Sora, Donald and Goofy fight at Port Royal a year ago.

It seemed there was one man who was trying to climb out of the water on the other side of the half of the ship, but in the end, collasped. Will, with concern washing over him, hanged the lamp he'd been carrying and rushed over to see if the man was alright, thought deep in his heart, he knew that there wasn't much he could do.

He pulled the nearly dead man over, and to Will's horror, the man's entire face was suctioned clean of eyes, nose, and mouth, leaving behind only utter blankness that was completely terrifying. Will gasped as he backed away slightly, and, seeing this, he suddenly remembered the legend of the Kracken Gibbs told him earlier.

He then realised the truth about this ship. It fell to the Flying Dutchmen. To make things worse, he suddenly heard as if the sea itself began to shudder in an unearthly manner. But before he could guess what it was, there was the sound of a great rushing tide of water. Turning, he saw an enormous ship rearing up from below the water. Will hurried to the sides to get a better look.

Its bow resembled the mouth of a shark, filed with sharp, jagged teeth, ready to feast on any defenseless prey it could find. The ship was large, but sleek and deadly. Water gushed from multiple cannon ports and its thick hull looked well able to defend the interior. There could be no mistaking this ship. This was truly the legendary ship of Davy Jones, the ghostly Flying Dutchman.

Will was momentarily so absorbed in the awful sight before him; he didn't notice that he had company. Turning to look behind him, only for a heavy chain struck him across the face and he collapsed in a heap. A bunch of strangely fish-like human-like things appeared around him, having caught him off-guard.

* * *

To say that Jack Sparrow was terrified at the sight of the Flying Dutchmen appearing out of the sea like a whale was an understatement. Oh yes, he'd seen this before, years back, but that didn't mean it didn't freak him out now. To make things worse, he could feel not only his left tainted hand twitch uncomfortabley, but for a mysterious reason, his right hand was growing increasingly warm, which also was making his heart grow unusually warm and he was worried that if the Heartless didn't get to his heart first, then he would definately die of a heart burn.

"Cap'n." Gibbs' voice broke Jack out of his thoughts.

"What?"

"I think there's somthin' you might want to look at, sir." Gibbs continued, handing Jack the spyglass.

The captain peered through it and sure enough, something interesting was going on. And at the sight of it, Jack nearly felt his heart jump right up into his throat when a familiar monsterous form of Davy Jones turned and as though gazing at his very soul through both his eyes and the spyglass, glared at him as if he could see him, despite the darkness of the night without the lamps lit. If this was the case, then so much for hiding in the darkness like a Heartless or those strange Organizing trouble-making group that would put pirates out of business.

As if the darkness had incasted his doom, the moment Jack lowered the spyglass, there stood, just inches in front of him, was the deadly cursed Pirate Captain himself, his skin all slimely, pale and fish-like, clothing encasted with sea marines, one hand of that of a tentacle, and another of that of a crab claw, and the thick mass of tentacles that was once his beard at some point. Cold, ice-blue eyes, set above the lipless mouth, glared at the now terrified Jack Sparrow.

To make things worse, Davy Jones' crew then appeared out of nowhere as did their captain and all captured Jack's crew at knife and gun point, making them unable to do anything to defend their captain of the Black Pearl.

Realising that, with his crew captured, and that he wasn't getting out of this, Jack knew that he was in serious trouble. "Oh." he mumbled.

What he didn't know, though, is that Davy Jones knew something that Jack didn't, but the cursed Pirate decided not to reveal that, since he has his prey where he wanted.

"You have a debt to pay." Said Davy Jones in a harsh, Scottish voice. He came towards Jack, while Jack, looking decidedly nervous, retreated. "You've been captain of the Black Pearl for thirteen years. That was our agreement."

Jack, wincing tried to point out the loophole, "Technically, I was only captain for two years, than I was viciously mutinied upon." though he didn't mention that said munity was added due to some fat guy-Pete, was it?-joined up just to gain control of the world or about the new secret Keyblades.

Davy Jones didn't call the bluff. "Than you were a poor captain, but you were a captain nonetheless. Have you now introduced yourself all these years as Captain Jack Sparrow?" The rest of Jones' crew laughed at the joke.

Ignoring the laughter in hopes to keep his dignity, Jack continued to drive his bargain, "You've got my payment, one soul to serve aboard your ship, he's already over there." referencing to Will.

"One soul is not equal to another." Said Jones.

Jack pounced on that. "Ah-ha, so we've established that my theory is sound in principle. Now, we're just haggling over price."

Jones seemed to be caught off caught off guard by this. He stared sideways at Jack and asked, "Price?"

Jack let the thought hang in the air, before continuing in his persuasive argument. "Just how many souls do you think my soul is worth?"

Jones seemed to consider that before answering. "100 souls, three days."

"You're a diamond, mate." Said Jack, turning as he said, "Send me back the boy, I'll get started right off."

Jack was stopped in his path by a fearsome shark man. Jones' voice cut through the night. "I keep the boy. A good faith payment. That leaves you only 99 more to go."

As Jones and his crew laughed at yet another of his morbid jokes. Jack tried again to obtain Will's release, a none to easy task considering who he was up against, but then, neither Jack nor Davy Jones knew of Master Xehanort's demise or his youngerself returning to his time and lost his memories until his elderhood which still result his demise, as history would forever now repeat itself. As long as Davy Jones kept Jack out of the loop of the latter having gained something from the boy named Sora, nothing would get Jack out of the loophole.

But Jack was a man of cleverness and wittiness. "Have you not met Will Turner? He's noble, heroic, terrific soprano. Worth at least four, maybe three-and-a-half." Seeing that he wasn't getting anywhere, he decided to try for the one weakness that he knew Jones had. "And did I happen to mention, he's in love."

At the word _love_ , he saw Jones' icy demeanor beginning to crack. Jack quickly moved to press his advantage. "With a girl. Due to be married, betrothed. Dividing her from him and him from her would only be half as cruel as allowing them to be joined in holy matrimony, eh?" Jack was behind Jones when he said this, but he could still see that Jones' entire face had softened and his eyes, awash in tears, were staring into a distance that was measured only in time, filling up the hole where his heart once was. Jack hoped that that softening would play to his advantage, but Jones' face hardened suddenly, and he turned a keen glance on Jack.

"So they be rumors that you met a boy with a so called Keyblade, eh, Sparra?" Jones suddenly questioned.

Jack froze. How in the devil's name did Jones know about the Keyblade? He hasn't said anything, that's for sure, or even mention about Sora except for when he met the three teenagers and the two young men earlier back on the Isle of Dead Meat(as he took to quickly like since he full heartedly agreed with Lea).

"That what?" Jack asked, as innocently as he could, doing his best to pretend that he knew nothing about the Keyblade. He still had sights on getting his own since he came to a conclusion that Sora would never depart from his what so ever. Not to mention that it wasn't even possible to even surrender the Keyblade anyway.

Davy Jones didn't call for that bluff either. "The weapon that was used not only by a boy whome I heard about weeks ago, but, used in war hundreds years ago. A Keyblade War, as they call it."

Jack bit his lip, before admitting, "I may have a bit of an aqquintince with those Keyblade thingies," then added with full confusion, "Never 'eard of them being used in a war before, though. You'd think you'd read up about that history in history books. And I'm quite fond of learning."

So Jack didn't know about his Keyblade inheritence yet. As if the Keyblade conversation never happened, and getting back to the point, Davy Jones declared, "I keep the boy, 99 souls." He looked at Jack closely, before asking pointedly, "But I wonder Sparra, can you live with this. Can you condemn an innocent man, a friend, to a lifetime of servitude in your name when you roam free?"

Jack seemed to consider the choice, before answering, "Yep, I'm good with it." The tone of his voice, though flippant, sounded somewhat forced. "Shall we seal in blood, I mean, er, uh…. ink?"

In answer, Davy Jones grabbed Jack by the hand, enveloping it in the mass of slimy tentacles that served as Jones' right hand. Jack heard himself gasping with shock, as that strange, alien feeling moved from his hand, up through his arm and through his entire body. It was a taste of the fate that those who were mad enough to accept the deal that Davy Jones offered. They were doomed to lose their humanity until they became monster, like the one standing before him now.

"Three days." Uttered Davy Jones, a dire warning to Jack at what would happen should he fail to keep his side of the bargain. He tried to untangle his hand from Jack's, but did so only after a little bit of difficulty. Turning, he began talking away, the last words he had spoken echoing eerily around the night air. " _Three days._ "

With harsh laughter, the monstrous crew of Davy Jones loosened their grips on Jack's men and vanished along with their captain, leaving behind several fairly rattled nerves and not one of them able to say that he was unafraid.

And in the tense atmosphere around him, Jack lifted his hand, which was covered in slime from Davy Jones' tentacles. The Black Spot slowly faded, until it vanished completely. He was reprieved, for the moment.

It also irked him to admit, if Davy Jones knew about the Keyblades, then Jack had a supicious feeling, via Sora's explaination on Organization XIII and how much trouble those guys were, that Davy Jones met one of them, perhaps even Luxord or another trouble-making member of the thirteen men. Plus, why else call the organization Organization XIII?

If Jack didn't know any better, with even just holding Sora's Keyblade, he'd gotten himself into an unholy mess.

"Er, Mr. Gibbs?"

"Aye, Cap'n." Gibbs replied, coming to stand next to his captain.

"I feel sullied and unusual." And he wasn't sure if he meant the new knowlage of the Keyblade and this war Keyblades were used in or his disturbing encounter with Davy Jones.

"And what's this about this war with these so called Keyblades?"

Jack's answer was less then his usual confidence. "I don't know what this war is about. All I do know is that...Keyblades just lit up in people's hands. Sora was a good example."

"And how do you intend to harvest these 99 souls in three days?"

Jack was relieved that there was at least one question he could answer with some measure of self-assurance. "Fortunately, he was mum as to the condition in which these souls need be."

"Ah, Tortuga." Said Gibbs, catching on to Jack's measure.

Jack almost unconsciously wiped his hand on Gibbs' shirt as he murmured in confirmation. "Tortuga."

* * *

As soon as Mickey took Rufus and his Turks along with Roxas and Vincent to Midgar, he quickly arrived back to Radiant Garden to meet with Riku, Aqua, Terra, Isa, Namine, Cloud and Zack, before the group followed Isa back to the Castle in which Ansem the Wise once ruled before the events that happened eleven years earlier that caused Maleficent to take over the world until two years ago.

Luckly, his friends had only just arrived themselves and he joined up with them.

"Looks like Radiant Garden's getting better and better each day." Riku thought as he looked around, gazing at the new houses and shops and the recreated flowerbeds.

"What are you talking about?" Aqua asked, concerned, as this wasn't the Radiant Garden she remembered from twelve years ago. Then again, she'd been trapped in the Realm of Darkness for so long, unaging due to the time-difference between the Realm of Light and the Realm of Darkness.

"It fell into ruins on the same day Lea and I lost our hearts due to Xehanort killing us and Maleficent arriving and taking over." Isa explained as he lead the group towards the castle. "Fortunately, even before the two of us got our hearts back, the Restoration Committee had been working hard in rebuilding our city back to the way it was before. Who knows, perhaps even greater. Though I have to admit, I wasn't back long enough to get a full results, and in times when I did come here, well, I'd rather not talk about it."

"I'm going to go to meet with Leon and the others." Namine told the group as they passed the alley.

"When you do, can you check up on Tifa?" Cloud asked, "I just hope she's alright, after what happened in Nibelhiem." remembering that he sent the Gullwings back here with Tifa for the latter to get full recovery.

"The restoration committee?" Zack, Aqua and Terra asked.

"Members of Leon, Yuffie, Cid and Aerith. Tifa and I are aqquinted members since we both came here last year." Cloud explained.

"Never met them." Terra shrugged, and Aqua nodded in agreement.

"I'm sure we'll be able to introduce you. Besides, maybe Merlin might know something about Chaos and Bhunivelze." Mickey thought.

"Last I recall, Merlin and those three faries were helping Lea and myself in learning how to gain our Keyblades in such a short time." Isa thought.

"I remember Merlin." Terra said. "He dropped that book that wasn't his. I think it was _"Winnie the Pooh"_ or something."

"I've seen that book too, and I think Ven saw it as well, twelve years ago." Aqua remembered.

"Am I the only one who's lost here?" Zack asked to Cloud who shrugged.

"It's some magical book that Sora goes inside and that he's friends with it's own world's inhabits or something. I mean, literally." The blonde-haired swordsman answered.

The other swordsman paused, before sighing as he placed his hands on his hips. "Boy oh boy. Some crazy things that don't hear about at the Coliseum everyday."

"Yeah, Sora once tried to get me to go inside that book to meet those friends of his inside that book, but I've always said no." Riku laughed a little.

"Why's that?" Aqua asked.

"It's...kind of embarrassing."

Mickey lightly laughed, "Aw, don't feel bad about it, Riku. Even I wanna one day explore the Hundred Ache Wood. One time, I climbed up a beanstalk and met a shape-shifting giant."

"How many adventures did you go on before meeting us, your majesty?" Namine asked, curiously.

The king shrugged, a bit sheepishly, "Well...lots of them. Though not all of them I'd like to remember." shuddering a bit at a certain memory that threatened to reappear in his mind.

"At least you had some good adventures." Cloud sighed.

"I'll say." Terra agreed.

"Anyway, let's go see if everybody's alright, and then we'll head over to the castle to find Aqua's Keyblade and armor." Mickey suggested, leading the group to Merlin's hosue, which, like the rest of Radiant Garden, was different compared to what Isa, Terra and Aqua remembered. As the group entered, it seems that they were in for a surprise at each reasons.

Leon and Aerith were standing each side of Cid who was again busy with the computer, Yuffie and Rikku were fighting over an Sea-Salt Ice Cream bar, while Yuna and Paine were finishing up the last of the tiny bruises on Tifa's arm as the latter was now awake and back to full health. Merlin was there already, for he was told by Yen Sid about what happened, but the biggest suprise and shock filled up in Riku and Mickey.

Ienzo and Aeleus were there as well, and there was an elderly white duck that looked like Scrooge, but a bit different, wearing a lab coat with a red and white shirt underneath, and he was busy building something, with a surprisingly awakened Even, and Dilan just stood there, arms crossed.

While Isa and Namine were surprised yet relieved that Even and Dilan were alright, Riku, only recongising Even, Aeleus and Ienzo as their Nobodies, tensed a little, until Namine rests a hand onto his arm. The teen gazed at the former Nobody of Kairi who smiled warmly to ensure him that the three other former Nobodies mean no harm. Riku relaxed just a bit, while Aqua and Terra both recongised the guard uniforms that were just like Braig's before he joined Xehanort's side.

Mickey on the other hand, recongised the newcommer and sputtered out, "Professor Von Drake?" which his voice caught everyone's attentions, and they were surprised, though some of them were relieved at Namine's return, that they had company.

"Namine!" Yuffie squealled, forgetting her tug of war with Rikku, and rushed over to give Namine a bone-crushing hug, causing the latter off-guard. "Where were you!? I've been worried sick! Where are Lea, Roxas and Xion? Are they okay?"

"I-I'm fine, Yuffie. I'm sorry." Namine finally managed to say, while awkardly returning the hug to her friend. "Lea, Roxas and Xion are alright, but, it'll be a bit longer before they can come home."

"Ah, I see that you returned, Isa. It's a pity that I wasn't awake when you left with Lea, Roxas, Xion and Namine earlier." Even greeted.

Isa sighed, "Had problems with Xehanort and all. It was my choice to go with them to find out more on what was happening."

"I take that you're Isa." Leon spoke up, approaching. "Lea told me a bit about you." as though not surprised. Then again, when the other former Organization members arrived and told on what was happening, he expected to see Isa.

"Cloud!" Tifa cried out, leaping from the chair and hugged Cloud who was caught off-guard by his childhood friend's affection. "I've been so worried!"

"Sorry that I'm late." Cloud managed to reply after a moment.

"Oh my, it's you two young people." Merlin spoke up, recongising Aqua and Terra. "You both haven't changed at all."

"Neither have you." Terra greeted with a smile. "Nice to see you again, Merlin."

"It's good to see you." Aqua greeted.

"Why thank you." Merlin chuckled.

"Riku. How have you been?" Aerith greeted.

"I'm good." Riku shrugged.

The flower girl then looked up and noticed Zack who noticed her, and, for some reason, both of them could only stare at each other, the strange feeling that was fluttering inside them.

"Well, if you ain't in top shape. O'l wizard boy here wouldn't keep his mouth shut in talking about what happened." Cid spoke up, pausing at his work, while Rikku, Yuna and Paine all rolled their eyes.

Finally, the white duck, Von Drake, approached Mickey and said, "Ho ho, it's good to see you again, your majesty."

"What are you doing here in Radiant Garden?" Mickey asked, which caught the others's attentions again.

"Do you know him?" Terra asked, curiously.

The king nodded, explaining, "This is Professor Ludwig Von Drake. He's my hometown's inventor and who helped in building the Gummi ship with Chip and Dale. It's a long story."

"He came here just two days ago after we came back with Tifa from Nibelhiem." Yuna said as she stood up.

Riku blinked as he, having met the Gullwings when Sora brought him and Kairi over a month after Xemnas was defeated, and back then, the three women were faries. "Um...how come you're...people size now?" he asked, awkwardly.

Rikku was the first to realise what Riku was saying, and she told him, "Oh, we weren't always fairies. A witched turned the three of us like that. It was when those Remnant guys came that the witch returned and had turned us back to normal, though it her case, that was an accident."

"And what about you guys?" Riku asked, a bit supiciously to Ienzo.

"As you may have noticed with Isa, like him and Lea, we are no longer as we were in the Organization. I assure you that we have no intentions to cause problems any more, Riku." Ienzo answered, with Even, Aeleus and Dilan all nodding in agreement.

Despite his supicions, Riku decided to believe them for now.

Riku's group then went on to explain the things that happened to Leon and everyone else, and about why they came here.

* * *

 **A/N: I know it's a lack of action, but I will try and make up for it in the next chapter. Professor Von Drake is another Disney character who made his debut in "Disney's Ducktales", "Mickey Mouse Works" and "House of Mouse".**


	4. Familiar but Still Grudged

**Author's Note: I've seen the playthrough of the "Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep 0.2-A Fragmenty Passage" demo on youtube, and it's amazing, despite some...small mishaps on the character designs. But none the less, I seriously can't wait for KH2.8 to come out. Really looking forward to the full game of 0.2 and X-Back Cover.**

 **I still don't own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy.**

* * *

 _ **CH 3: Familiar but Still Grudged.**_

As they were making their way to Port Royal to check up on Will and Elizabeth, as well as investigate on the more secrets of immortily which this world had shockingly held more than any other worlds Sora had visited in the past, he couldn't help but think about how much he and his friends learned for the past two years ever since his first adventure had begun. How he forgot that, as a four year old boy, he agreed to allow Ven's heart to sleep inside his own heart and for twelve years, had held the blond's heart inside him.

Sora couldn't help but feel guilty for having kept Ven's heart imprisioned inside him and never knowing, and despite Ven saying that it was alright and actually thanked him, the sixteen year old still felt bad for not realising for so long.

"Sora?"

"Huh?" Sora blinked, before realising that Kairi was looking at him with a bit of concern on her face. As much as he didn't want to admit it, she was still beautiful.

"Are you okay?" asked the red-haired girl.

Realising that he must've looked a bit down, Sora shrugged, smiling a little, "Yeah, I'm okay. Just thinking."

Kairi sighed, for she half figured what her close friend was thinking about, and did her best to assure him, "We'll figure something out. I don't know how yet, but we'll figure something out."

Despite that they had Chaos and possibly Bhunivelze to worry about, Sora knew that his friend was right. He didn't care how long it took to stop Chaos, he wasn't going to let the God of Destruction or whatever Chaos was, to destroy the Realm of Light, not after all the hard work in finally defeating Xehanort for good. While Sora had no idea how yet, he knew that Kairi was right. They will figure something out, one way or another.

"Yeah. You're right." Sora nodded. "Thanks, Kairi."

* * *

It wasn't long before Sora, Kairi, Ven, Lea, Xion, Donald and Goofy to arrive in the familiar world which Ven and Kairi were the only ones who haven't been to this Pirate world before. However, when the seven worldly travellers descended from the gummiship, they found themselves at an unfamiliar island and an unfamiliar and possibly very rowdy town with several pirate ships docked at the single port, with pirates coming in and out, some of them stocking up for supplies for their voyge, some of them just arriving and two or three different people...well, they looked hung over to the point of losing their breakfest, lunch and dinner into the ocean.

"Uh, are you sure this is Port Royal?" Ven asked, uncertainly, nose wrinkling in disgust at the oder smell of heavily used achohol and vomit mixed in even from the side of the beach.

Donald, remembering the Underworld mislanding a year ago, scowled at Sora, grumbling, "Sora..."

"What? I didn't land us here." Sora protested while waving his hands that said, ' _It wasn't me!_ '

That's when Donald remembered it was Goofy who piloted this time and then quickly turned to glare at his silly friend, grumbling, "Goofy...!"

"Oops. Sorry." Goofy shrugged guiltily.

"Ah, don't worry about it, Goof." Lea shrugged. "Actually, compared to the first time Xion and I were here with the others, this is paradise, unlike the Isle of Dead Meat." glad that they didn't land back on the Cannibal Island.

"I don't think I'd like to go back to the Isle De Murta either." Sora reluctantedly agreed, remembering the island of the cursed treasure of Cortez, the very same place where Jack Sparrow had shot Babossa dead.

"Either way, maybe we should look around and see if we can find a ship that'll take us to Port Royal." Sora suggested.

"Uh, you might wanna hold that thought, Sora." Lea said, seeing something that made him point to their right. When Sora and the others followed his gaze, their eyes widened as the sight of a familiar ship with black sails that was also docked.

"Garwsh. Isn't that...?" Goofy began.

"The Black Pearl." Sora agreed.

"Then that means Captain Jack and his crew are here." Xion realised. "Maybe we can see how they went in finding the Flying Dutchmen."

"Forget it! I'm not gonna go near that boat again!" Donald said stubbornly.

"Nice try, but we're going." Sora smirked, as he and Goofy both grabbed hold of Donald's arms and dragged the protesting duck who tried to fight back, while Kairi, Ven, Xion and Lea followed while laughing softly at the rather cute scene.

But little did they know that Jack wasn't the only familiar face they were about to greet here...in Tortuga.

* * *

In the noisy courtyard of one of the many taverns that dotted every corner of Tortuga, the captain of the Black Pearlwas on a mission. Jack Sparrow knew the impossibility of the deal he had made with Jones. 100 souls in three days wasn't possible, even for him. Still, he had always tried doing the impossible, before trying anything else, so at than at least that course of action had been explored. Thusly, he had decided that maybe trying to harvest some souls might not be a bad place to start, unless something better happened to come along.

He also tried to think of many possible salutions on how Davy Jones knew about the Keyblade and about Sora, but so far, Luxord's chances of actually meeting him seemed slim now that Jack thought about it. And this Keyblade War...maybe getting a Keyblade wasn't such a good idea after all, and Jack had seen treasure that had made him interested at first, but when he learned about those certain kinds of treasure, the knowlage of those made him reconsider.

In truth and he didn't mention this to anyone, but Jack never really liked in taking another man's life or threatening a woman, unless in the end, he had no choice or he, in rare situations, that he'd be the one to kill the most evil men in this world.

Gibbs was seated a few feet from where Jack was sitting. He was in the process of interviewing potential candidates for the crew, at least that's what it was supposed to seem like.

He asked every person the same question. "And what makes you think you're worthy to crew the Black Pearl?"

And every answer was a study in inadequacy. "Truth be told, I never sailed a day in me life." said the first man, who appeared to be older than Moses. "I figger I should get out an' see the world while I'm still young."

Any answer, however, was good enough for Gibbs. "You'll do, make your mark."

The next person in line stepped forward. "My wife run off with my dog." He said, sullenly, "And I don't give a ass rat's if I live or die."

"Perfect." Replied Gibbs, gaily.

"Me have one arm and a bum leg." Said the next person.

"It's the crow's nest for you." Said Gibbs, helpfully.

Jack, meanwhile, finding no particular interest in the exchange between the potential recruits and Gibbs, had turned his attention to the compass. It still was acting strangely, pointing in every direction except for the one which would show him what he wanted most. "I know what I want, I know what I want, I know what I want." He repeated over and over, as if saying it multiple times would somehow make it true. Unfortunately, it made very little difference. The compass still spun wildly in all directions over and over again.

In irritation, he slammed it shut again, and repeated this, but still ended up in the same result. Maybe Tia Dalma was right. Maybe Jack didn't know what he really wanted.

Gibbs continued on with his recruiting efforts. The last one in the line came forward and said with eagerness, "Ever since I was a little lad, I always wanted to sail the seas, forever."

"Sooner than you think. Sign the roster."

"Thanks very much."

Hoping to get his mind off of the riddle that the compass was presenting to him, Jack asked, "How we coming?"

"Including those four, that gives us, four."

In further irritation, Jack gave the stupid compass a violent shake, as though it might help to get the bloody thing to work, or just to take out his frustation on everything's that happened to him for the last month...or perhaps both. Maybe he should have a compass that just pointed north; at least something like that would never drive him to madness. Besides how the Compass allowed Sora to lock the keyhole to protect this world from darkness or opening up a gate to another world, Jack felt that his special item was getting the better of him these days.

Another recruit had shown up at the table. Turning his attention to him, Gibbs asked, "And what's your story?" he had expected another pathetic recital. But instead, he received an answer that was completely unexpected.

"My story?" The man mockingly repeated. "It's rather a very unbelievable one in which once you were taken in by a man who you thought was going to give you what you wanted actually lied for his own purposes, having holding onto your precious cards."

Jack froze. He reconigsed that voice, but how? He turned his head and his eyes widened for he saw a familiar man...or his head, really. The familiar blond hair, cold blue eyes, blonde small beard, and one earring on his left ear. The difference was that the man no longer wore the black coat, but instead, he wore the more typical pirates clothes, shirt light brown, vez dark brown, with darker brown trousers and nearly black boots, and he looked...pretty ragged.

In more ways than one. Suddenly believing that Luxord, whom Jack thinks was still was and still not having any idea on what happened after Sora left the second time a year ago, the Pirate Captain became nervous, and slowly plucked a frond from a nearby plant and embarrasingly hid behind it, before slicking his way out to avoid Luxord's wrath.

"I was part of an Organization in forcing a boy to gain our goal but was destroyed by a former comrade who betrayed us and sent me to a place worse than hell. Then I found myself here, back to who I was, but because of a certain man whom the boy helped, I'm stuck here." Luxord continued, before he grabbed the bottle of rum that was on top of Gibbs' table and took a long drink.

Gibbs was confused, not having heard anything like that from his captain before. In the end, he asked, "Come again?"

"Weren't you paying attention?" Luxord hissed venomously, causing Gibbs to lean back slightly nervously.

"So, do I make your crew or not?" he growled softly, choosing to ignore the question, "You haven't said where your going? Somewhere nice!" With sudden violence, he heaved the table over. It fell to the floor with a great crash and instantly brought a stop to the rush of activity that had been whirling around them. Everyone turned to star at the source of the commotion. They all seemed quite stunned by this unexpected interruption.

Luxord, who had also regained his heart but was not in any good position right now, and was, in short, drunk, hollered in sarcasm, "So, am I worthy to serve under Captain Jack Sparrow?"

Suddenly, he drew his cards and aimed it straight at a walking palm frond that was making its way across the room. "Or should I just kill you now?" for he, like Lea and Isa, still had the powers from his Nobody.

Jack eased his head out from behind the frond, only to see that Luxord was aiming his cards straight at him. He tried shifting positions from the left to the right, only to see that Luxord's dangerous cards had followed him. Seeing no other alternative, he said, "You're hired."

But that didn't pacify Luxord, as he held an insane smile, itching to imprision anyone inside his cards for all eternity, which he would've done if Axel hadn't defeated him. "So sorry. I need to let out my frustration once and a while."

He was just about to use his pwoers when he was suddenly accosted by two of the new recruits that had signed up that evening.

"Easy, sailor."

"That's our captain you're threatening."

Their efforts met with only partial success, for though they managed to prevent Luxord from shooting Jack, they weren't able to prevent him from shooting the cards altogether. The card's power zinged upwards, ricocheted off the chandelier and shattered the bottle of rum that a pirate across the room had been enjoying. Promptly, the pirate turned to the person next to him and belted him across the mouth. That was as good an excuse as any for the whole room to explode in an all-out brawl. Immediately swords were ringing, pistols were firing and pirates were trying to beat each other to smithereens, all in good fun, of course.

Amidst the sudden noise and chaos, nobody seemed to take any notice of Jack, and Gibbs . Jack stuffed the now unnecessary palm frond into a nearby barrel (not that it had ever been of much use in the first place), and called to Gibbs. "Time to go?"

"Aye," replied Gibbs to the obvious question and stood up, following his captain.

Scooting through, around and in-between fights, Jack and Gibbs, in their own typical bizarre form of luck managed to slip out of the tavern's courtyard unnoticed and unscathed. Along the way, Jack tried out each drunken man's hat to replace his long gone hat, though none of them seemed to fit him just right, not like his precious hat.

He passed by another man and took his hat, then tapped him friendly, saying, "Thanks, mate." only for the man to tumble backwards and collaspe onto the lower floor. Jack then took off the hat and placed onto another man who was held by two other men who shoved him over the railing.

And no sooner had they exited than a new person made it's appearance on the scene. Elizabeth Swann, the daughter of the Govener of Port Royal, who would usually wear a dress, was now dressed in boy's clothes after her escape, pushed her way through the crowd, only to be confronted by Luxord t the center of the brawl, fighting his way brutally out of every person who came in his direction. He didn't even seem to be wasting any effort and was unaware of the imminent danger that he was in.

Quickly, Elizabeth drew her own sword and went at it alongside him, drawing away pirates who could very well have sneaked up on Luxord's back, whole he was to preoccupied to notice. The two of them were a challenging competition, but they were only two against a whole roomful of opponents, who were quickly figuring out who was responsible for starting all of this in the first place.

At last, the fight boiled down to the two of the. Elizabeth found that they were surrounded by dozens of pirates. All of them surrounded by dozens of pirates, all of them with weapons drawn, all those weapons pointed straight at them.

But, even now, Luxord seemed completely unaware that he was in serious trouble. "Come on, then, who wants it?" He shouted loudly, waving his sword wildly, "Form an orderly line; I'll have you all one by one."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes in annoyance. Nobody or not, Luxord hasn't changed much, except the fact that now the latter was clearly not with Organization XIII anymore and became more of an annoying man than anything else. He couldn't see that every one of the pirates was more than willing to take up his challenge.

Deciding to end this quicker with that she knew what any typical man would, Elizabeth grabbed the bottle of rum he was holding and shattered it over his head. Luxord dropped like a rock, out cold instantly.

The pirates, before menacing, became suddenly confused. "I just wanted the pleasure of doing that myself." She said, with a great deal of bravado in a deepish voice to make sound like a young man.

It was the right approach. A cheer rose from the pirates, and mugs were raised in the air, congratulating the _young lad_ for his pluck and daring.

* * *

A few minutes later, the pirates were dealing out their own form of punishment to the half-conscious Luxord. They pitched him bodily into the mud laughing and joking amongst themselves, as to the evenings' happenings. One solitary figure among them was silent in the mockery of the humiliated Luxord. Elizabeth Swann quietly approached him, lying in the mud. Whether he did things worse than pirates did or not a year ago, Elizabeth felt that something was amiss, and she kneeling down to help him to his feet. She said, in a mildly chiding voice.

"What have you done to yourself, Luxord?"

"I know you..." Luxord grumbled, before answering to Elizabeth's question, "And also...I am no longer Luxord. It's Durol, and before you ask, I am no longer part of Organization XIII."

"How did this happen?"

"Believe me...you will not believe it."

Little did the two of them know, heir entire conversation had been overheard by a deadly enemy. Caius Ballad, who had arrived earlier as well, watched them as they disappeared around a corner. The look on his face was utterly chilling. This made his plot to find the Keyblade bearers a lot easier than he imagined. As long he could keep an eye on Elizabeth and the former tenth member of the first Organization, he could find Sora and his friends.

Slipping away from his hiding place, he began to follow them silently through the streets of Tortuga.

* * *

By the time Sora and his friends arrived on the docks, while surprised that, possibly due to Xehanort being defeated and Chaos only just making his appearence, that there were no signs on anymore Heartless or Nobodies at the moment, they instantly caught sight of Jack Sparrow, without his hat, and Gibbs, making their way back to the ship. Deciding to see how their pirate friend was doing and hoping to see Will, Sora and the others hurried, with Donald trailing behind, still grumbling for having to see the pirates again, still sore from last year's events with the evil Captain Barbossa.

"Is that him?" Kairi asked as she followed her friends.

"Yeah, pretty much." Lea laughed, "Walks like a toddler, huh?"

Sora ignored the redhead's jokes and despite still not really trusting the pirate, the Keyblade wielder called out, "Jack!"

Hearing someone calling his name and not adressing him as captain, Jack turned around, not recongising the group just yet, and called out, "You'd be adressing me as 'Captain' if you want to join me crew, lad."

"Except your friends, right?"

Jack stopped, before turning around fully and his eyes widened in not only seeing Lea, Xion and the blond haired boy that looked like Roxas again so soon, but also seeing three other familiar faces, Sora who shrugged a little, Goofy who greeted with a friendly wave, and Donald who looked miserable with his arms crossed and his face pouting. The only one he didn't recongise was Kairi.

"Sora?" Jack asked, before he turned quickly to Gibbs and said, in a slightly anxious whisper, "Tell the crew to be nice." before quickly adding, "And hide the rum."

While Gibbs scurried to do obey, keeping the bottle of rum out of sight, Jack turned back to Sora and his friends, and said, "Nice be seeing you again, lad, and I gather you already reuighted with...Lea, Xion and Roxas."

"Did he just call me Roxas?" Ven asked, puzzled to Donald who nodded.

"Well, you do look like a spitting image of him. I guess that's why Roxas looked a bit less like Sora." Lea pointed out, before turning to Jack and added, "So, how'd your caper go?"

"Wot?" Jack replied, dumbfounded.

"You know, with the whole Flying Dutchmen thing? Did you find the key?" Lea said again, more clearly this time.

"You were looking for the Flying Dutchmen?" Goofy asked, as he, Donald, Sora, Kairi and Ven looked shocked at hearing this.

"You know?"

"It's a long story." Sora sighed, "We have bigger problems, which is one of the main reasons why we came here."

"I thought those trouble thirteen organizers were gone by now." Jack said, puzzled.

"They are, but now we have a problem that's a lot worse than Organization XIII, even worse than the Heartless and the Nobodies." Sora continued.

Ven then decided to correct Jack for mistaking him for Roxas and said, "And as for me, sir, I'm not Roxas, even though I look just like him, and his and Sora's and my connections are complicated."

The pirate quirked an eyebrow at the boy who just said was not Roxas but looked just like him, except that his clothes were different, and asked, "If you're not Roxas, then who're you?"

"I'm Ven, short for Ventus." Ven replied.

Kairi then added, a bit reluctantedly, "And my name's Kairi. I'm one of Sora's best friends."

Jack gazed the now apparently two knew commers, them smiled and replied, "Pleasure to meet you and Ventus, darlin'." before frowning in concern, and turned to Sora, muttering, "You're not a eungue, are you?" for he never realised that Sora had a best friend that was a girl, or perhaps more than just a friend.

"A what?" Sora slumped.

"Oh gimme a break. This is getting us nowhere." Donald grumbled.

But before anyone else could say anything further, another familiar voice called up, "Captain Sparrow?"

Jack turned to catch sight of a young man, who looked just out of boyhood approaching them. "Come to join me crew, lad? Welcome aboard." He called out blithely. He was always in need of new crewmembers, now more than usual. The lad looked strong enough, and he was sure that they could find a place for him.

But just as he turned his attention to continue his conversation with Sora, apparently joining Jack's crew wasn't exactly what this _"lad"_ had in mind. "I'm here to find the man I love."

Everyone froze, before looking at each other, dumbfounded, but none more so than Sora, Donald, Jack and Lea, all of them having blank stonishment before Jack said, rather uncomfortably, "I'm deeply flattered son, but my first and only love is the sea." before he gestured at Lea to find some way to get the boy of their presence.

Goofy, however, seemed to recongise the voice, and muttered, "Hey, wait..." before turning around and realized that the boy was none other than Elizabeth Swann. "Oh! Hi-yah, miss Swann! Ah-hyuck!"

Hearing the name caused everyone to turn and their eyes widened, as Sora and Donald both exclaimed in surprise, "Elizabeth!?"

"You're a girl!?" Ven and Lea both exclaimed in shock, while Kairi and Xion both looked at each other, with giggles, apparently having also realised that the boy was really Elizabeth Swann.

"Sora! Donald! Goofy!" Elizabeth cried happily, before asking, "You didn't recongise me?"

"Uh uh." Donald shook his head, at the same time as Sora replied, "Not me."

"Wow, even I was surprised." Lea laughed nervously. "Anyway, nice to meet you, ma'am. Names Lea. Got it Memorized?"

"My name's Xion." Xion introduced herself.

"And I'm Kairi." Kairi added.

"And I'm Ventus, but you can call me Ven." Ven said last.

Elizabeth smiled at Sora's new friends, accepting the greeting, before she turned her attention to Jack, correcting him for his earlier statement, "Meaning William Turner, Captain Sparrow."

Once he had seen that this was indeed Elizabeth, Jack then changed the subject and said, "You know, these clothes do not flatter you at all. It should be a dress or nothing. I happen to have no dress in my cabin."

"And what does that mean?" Kairi suddenly challenged, feeling rather insulted as she turned to face him and crossed her arms, with a challenging look that even made Lea nervous. Sora backed off a bit, knowing Kairi's mood swings once and a while, and Ven, remembering the times with Aqua, backed off a bit too. Xion tilted her head to the side a little in confusion, for she was still new to being a human. Donald, quickly frightened, gulped before he hid behind Lea who quirked an eyebrow at him.

Jack, who was too used in knowing woman's challenging look, grinned nervously at Kairi, and muttered quickly, "Nothin'."

"Jack," said Elizabeth. She had come to ask a question and she intended to get the answer. "I know Will came to find you. Where is he?"

Returning to reality, Lea then asked, "Yeah, where is he?"

"I thought he was with you to help save Elizabeth." Xion added.

"Jack, what did you do this time?" Sora sighed in exasperation. For as long as he knew the pirate, Jack did have a reputation in getting into trouble, either he wanted to or not.

Jack, knowing that he was in a bit of trouble again, offered the best thing he could come up with. "I am truly sorry to have to tell you all this, but through an unfortunate and entirely unforeseeable series of circumstances that have nothing whatsoever to do with me, poor Will has been press-ganged into Davy Jones crew."

While Sora and his group were shocked to hear this, Lea frowned skeptically. Jack was hiding something. The redhead could tell. Being skilled in lying himself, Lea learned from Isa in their childhood how to pick up tricks and lies in others, and that became a second nature now in their adulthood.

Even Elizabeth was skeptical on what she just heard, and asked, "Davy Jones?" confused by the name and slightly concerned.

Jack nodded, looking appropriately remorseful, but before he could reply, another voice, which after the sound of someone vomiting sounded, joined the conversation, a decidedly familiar, not to mention slightly sour voice. "Oh, please. The captain of the Flying Dutchman?"

Jack, Sora, Donald, Goofy, Kairi, Xion and Lea were all shocked and surprised to see that Luxord, or rather, Dulor now, was there, heavily hung over and covered in mud. They didn't even realise that he was with Elizabeth until he spoke. He didn't seem to be exactly thrilled to be where he was.

That was probably best, because Sora, Donald, Goofy, Lea, Xion and Jack weren't really all that ecstatic to be seeing him again either.

"Luxord?" Xion muttered.

"It's Dulor." Dulor groaned, before his eyes turned to the black-haired girl and now it was his turn to look surprised. "Xion? I thought you disappeared, you little puppet."

"You call her 'puppet' again," Lea began, in a strong tone of warning, "And I won't hesitate in burning you into crisp again. Got it memorized?"

"Oh, so you're here as well, Axel." Dulor cheered sarcastically. "As well as Sora and his friends."

"We're not thrilled to see you either." Sora grumbled, before whispering, "But I guess this means you got your heart back too, right?"

"Even so, it does not mean I will forgive all of you." Dulor said.

"You look kinda awful." Goofy said, seeing the mess on Dulor. "What happened to you?"

"He's hungover, that's what's goin' on." Lea answered, in a matter of factly. "I've seen guys get drunk over achohol." shrugging.

"Goofy's right, you do look bloody awful." Jack agreed, before asking, "What are you doing here?"

"You hired me." Dulor reminded him, sullenly, "I can't help it if your standards are lax."

"You smell funny." Retorted Jack. Sora, Donald and Lea couldn't help but burst into laughter at this comment, while Kairi, Goofy, Ven and Xion glared at the four of them, whether Dulor had done terrible things in the past or not.

"Jack," said Elizabeth, as if reminding him of her presence and to keep the two of them from continuing to trade insults that could turn ugly later on. "All I want is to find Will."

"I know." said Jack, half-under his breath, as he thought of what he could say to Elizabeth that would comfort her, but at the same time, take any attention away from himself. But then, he suddenly looked back at her, a renewed interest in his eyes. "Are you certain?" he asked, with a new intensity which he had not shown hitherto in the conversation. "Is that what you really want most?"

Elizabeth looked at Jack in mild confusion. "Of course."

Sora and the others glanced at each other, wondering what Jack had in mind in all this.

Jack then took Elizabeth by the arm and led her a little way off. "Because, I would think that you would want to find a way to save Will most."

"And you know how to do that?" Kairi asked, a bit skeptically, as she and her friends joined in the conversation, some of them mildly interested now themselves.

"Well," said Jack, "There is a chest."

"Oh, for Moogle's sake." Dulor said despairingly from the side.

Sora, Jack, Lea, Donald, Goofy and Xion casted him a look, before Jack turned his attention back to the seven worldly travellers and Elizabeth, continuing, "A chest of unknown size and origin."

"The chest with Davy Jones' heart?" Lea quickly realised, though he wasn't certain if he was right about his guess, but it didn't hurt to ask.

Pintel and Ragetti passed through the conversation, carrying a crate of rum between them while having heard only a fraction of the previous phrases and found it necessary to point out, "Wha' contains the still beatin' heart of Davy Jones."

Ragetti mimed taking his own heart from his chest, beating it right under the others' noses. Sora, Donald, Goofy and Elizabeth, a little surprised at first to be seeing those two again, were momentarily lost for words which allowed Jack to return to the topic at hand. "And whoever possesses that chest, possesses the leverage to command Jones to do whatever it is that he or she wants, including saving brave William from his grim fate."

"You never said that when we first met." Lea said, finding himself more and more skeptical. Then again, Xehanort could split his own heart and place each pieces into weakened people and turn them into clones.

"But I guess it does make a bit of kind of sense, since we dumped the chest of cursed gold into the ocean a year ago." Sora pointed out, having a deep thought about this, quickly adding, "Not that I'd trust you on this, Jack, and...I'm still finding it heart to believe it, since once someone loses their heart, they turn into a heartless and their nobody is created."

"But on the other hand," Xion said, "When both are destroyed, they fuse back into their original beings and return to normal."

Jack and Elizabeth were a bit surprised on this, and Lea shrugged, "Yeah, that's what happened to me, and what happened to Mr. Poker-face here." jerking his thumb at Dulor who gave him a cold glare at the insulting nick-name.

"We found that out just recently, in fact." Sora shrugged, "But we'll worry about that later. Are you sure we can trust you on your word?" with Donald nodding in agreement. Ven, Xion, Goofy and Kairi all looked uncertain on this on whether Jack was telling the truth or not.

Elizabeth considered this for a moment, before asking, "How do we find it?"

That was the sign that Jack had been waiting for. Elizabeth was ready to listen still further. "With this." he said, holding up the compass, "My compass is unique."

"Unique? Don't you mean broken?" Donald asked sarcastically.

"True enough." Jack agreed, but then continued, "But this compass is not an ordinary one, for it does not point north." while in the background, Dulor vomited again.

Despite her better judgement, Kairi then asked, finding herself more curious, "Then, where does it point?"

"It points to the thing that you want most in this world." Said Jack, in his most flattering voice.

"Uh...you mean it really points to what you really want?" Sora asked, "Sorry, I find that hard to believe." he shook his head.

"It's probably better than not figuring out how I ended up small back when I first met Cinderella." Ventus muttered under his breath.

Xion, being possibly the youngest, couldn't help but ask, "Are you telling the truth?"

"Every word, missy." Jack replied, before he placed the compass in Elizabeth's hands, and continued, "And what you want most in this world is to find the chest of Davy Jones, is it not?"

"To save Will?" Elizabeth asked.

Jack nodded, "By finding the chest of Davy Jones."

Having skillfully twisted Elizabeth's true desire into that thought, Jack eased open the compass and immediately backed away. If this worked, he had no intention of going anywhere near the compass for awhile.

Elizabeth, with Sora and the others lingering around her to get a better look, looked down at the compass. The needle spun wildly for a few seconds, as if getting used to a new holder whose desires weren't constantly flying in every direction at once, before finally holding steady in the direction of the southwest. All eight of them were quite stunned at this.

"Whoa..." Sora and Ven both breathed in awe.

Lea whistled, impressed. "Gotta admit, I was skeptical on that thing."

"So I guess that means we're going with to find the chest?" Kairi asked.

Sora, figuring that this might be their only chance in figuring out more on the immortilty of this world, and remembering that there was another afterlife world within this one, answered, "Seems like it. Guess we'll be going onboard the Black Pearl for a little bit. What do you say, guys?" to which Kairi, Ven, Xion, Lea and Goofy all nodded in agreement, while Donald groaned, but in the end, knew that he was out voted on the decision. Besides, the Black Pearl was the only transport that was willing to take them anywhere anyway.

Jack, after a few seconds, eased his face over Elizabeth's arm and peeked at the compass. "Mr. Gibbs?"

"Cap'n?"

"We have our heading." Declared Jack, rather pleased.

"Finally." Said Gibbs, visibly relieved. Turning back to the ship, he began shouting orders. "On deck, all hands, weigh anchor and crow that canvas."

A bustling of voices and crew suddenly began around them, as they Black Pearl prepared to leave Tortuga. Jack was elated: they had a heading.

"Miss Swann. Kairi and Xion." He said, grandly gesturing up the gangplank.

Elizabeth, smiling, took the invitation as gracefully as a lady. Kairi and Xion did the the same, with Sora, Lea, Donald, Goofy and Ven quickly following, ready for another adventure.

They all seemed to have forgotten, who was about to follow when Pintel shoved a goat into his arms and said, with a cackling sneer. "Welcome to the crew, former Organizer." This insult and the resultant mocking laughter of the crew around Dulor made it clear that the pirates were delighting in seeing their captain's former enemy brought so low.

As they climbed on deck, Jack turned to Lea and asked, "So, where are Roxas and those other two friends of yours, mate?"

"Isa and Namine?" Lea blinked, before answering, a bit hesitatedly, "Busy somewhere. It's a long story. Like Sora said, we have bigger problems."

"Can't imagine any problem bigger than Davy Jones or the Heartless or those Organizing troubling men."

"Actually, when you hear about the new threat that's more dangerous than even the giant squid Gibbs told us earlier, you'd probably be thinking that that's nothing compared to we're up against who hasn't made a full scale attack yet..." Lea paused, still haunted by the sight of Chaos in the Realm of Sleep. "At least for now."

Unfortunately, little did Sora and the others know, that Chaos and Davy Jones were not the only problems they were facing.

* * *

Back in Radiant Garden...

After Riku, Mickey, Aqua, Terra, Isa, Namine, Cloud and Zack told Leon and the others on the situation on Chaos and Bhunivelze, sadly even Merlin knew nothing about this except for some rumors about the two's connections. However, Even did say that Chaos was part of a research on a Chaos and Omega theory he discovered back when he was Vexen and had gone to Midgar himself, which left the group to conclude that they had to find out more on Bhunivelze from the only ones who would know about the corrupted god more than mortals.

The Gods of Olympus Coliseum.

So, after departing Merlin's house while Namine stayed behind to find out more, and with Angeal and Genesis having gone ahead to their next location, Riku and the others made their way towards the castle via Leon's permission. Mickey and Isa both led the way since both of them knew the castle more than the rest of them, save for Lea and Sora, for they knew that they had to find Aqua's armor and Keyblade. Terra's armor was back at the Keyblade Graveyard, but he decided to worry about getting his later, since they had more important things to worry about.

Cloud, however, kept on casting his eyes back and forth, and the more he did so, the more vigilant he became and the more he began to realise that they were being followed, not even convincing himself that he was paranoid.

Suddenly sharp movement caused him, and, surprisingly, everyone else, even Zack, to whip around behind them, just as a silhouette of a figure darted behind a rock to hide from their sight. But the group already suspected that there was someone there, and, not taking any chances, Cloud and Zack drew out their swords, while Isa summoned his Claymore since he was still practicing on his Keyblade, and Mickey, Riku, and Terra all summoned their Keyblades, while Aqua summoned Master Eraqus's Keyblade.

"Who's there?" Riku demanded.

"We know you're there. There's no point in hiding." Cloud added.

The group continued to stand in defence, as the figure finally gave up and came out from their hiding place. To Isa's annoyance and disbelief, it was a familiar mullet-haired young man, who too had regained his heart and discarded his organization coat for a more teenage punk clothes, wearing a tattered vez, short sleeved white shirt, jeans that were slightly torn in the knees, black sneakers, and wrist bands, with a chained necklace with the letter "M" at the bottom.

"Haven't I seen you before?" Mickey asked, skeptically.

Demyx, or Myde now, shrugged nervously, before seeing Isa and, remembering Saix, shook violently in fear, before dropping to his knees, placing his hands together as if to beg for forgiveness or to the gods, begged to the annoyed blue-haired man, while the others were puzzled, "Pleeese...! Saix, don't kill me! I'm begging _yooouuuu_!"

"Wait a minute..." Riku frowned, "You're the guy Sora mentioned; the whimp who ran away in the Underworld."

"Do you know him?" Zack asked, puzzled.

"He was the ninth member of the first Organization." Isa sighed, desummoning his Claymore. "But he was also the biggest slacker of the organization as well. Not to mention that his reports were that a five year old could do better at, and he would play that stupid styter of his which made horrible and loud noise. I was the one to give him a lecture every single time."

Myde grumbled, "Yeah, well, you also smacked me in the head with that clipboard, which still hurt, and tugged my ear as though you're my mother."

Isa smirked, "Makes me wonder if you slacked off at highschool as well."

"So, what are you doing here?" Aqua asked to Myde.

"Aw man. You mean you guys heard me the whole time?" Myde groaned.

Cloud scoffed, "Even a rookie Turk could sneak around better than you. But why were you following us?"

"Well, I've been stuck here since getting my heart back." Myde shrugged, "Not that I don't like being here, since my world's still not around. Then I saw you guys coming to this huge castle, so I got curious." while surprised the Isa was completely different compared what he used to be like as a Nobody.

"And...you followed us because you were curious?" Zack asked, skeptically. Personally, as far as he could tell, this guy was more of a mess-maker than Reno who always got the job done despite his appearence.

Myde nodded sheepishly, "Pretty much."

Everyone glanced at each other, before they all desummoned their weapons, as Terra couldn't help but say to Isa, "You're right. This guys is a slacker."

"The only question is, what do we do now?" Cloud asked.

"Well, he doesn't seem to be doing anything wrong." Mickey thought. "I know that I'm gonna regret in saying this, be maybe he should come with us, just in case."

Everyone looked at him as though he was crazy. None the less, they didn't know if they should agree with Mickey or not.

Until someone made the decision.

* * *

 **A/N: We'll be back in the next chapter and see what happens next. Please continue your awesome reviews, and I'll see you next time.**


	5. Uncomfortable Memories

**Author's Note: Sorry that I'm late, guys. Writer's block and the usual lame excuse. But you know that right now, and I bet you're all thinking, "What took them so long to update?" or something along the lines.**

 **Like I said, writer's block is what hits me the most and sometimes I don't feel like writing. Then again, I'm really excited for KH2.8 this year!**

 **Warning: This chapter contains spoilers for the upcoming Kingdom Hearts game. I took this from the demo and tried to remember the dialogue as much as I could. If you wish to avoid that part, please skip to "Back to the Present" part of this chapter.**

 **I still don't own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy.**

* * *

 _ **CH 4: Uncomfortable Memories.**_

 _ **During the events of 0.2 Birth By Sleep-A Fragmenty Passage.**_

 _Aqua couldn't believe that the Castle of Dreams, the very first world she visited in her life since her journey began, was not only trapped inside the Realm of Darkness like her, though she feared that she knew why, but also that the world itself was falling apart as though an apocylpse has occured, which might as well have been. Memories of her adventure in this world resurfaced-from when she first reuighted with Terra, to when she first discovered that Light and Darkness cannot exist without the other, even the memory of shrinking down the size of a mouse, saving Cinderella and reuighting her with the Prince of the castle._

 _The town was nearly in ruins, so she passed that, and made her way onto the familiar road leading right to the towering castle. But as Aqua paused in her steps to gaze at the castle, suddenly she felt the earth rumble and to her shock, the road began to collaspe right underneath her, the brick road crumbling into the dark abyss below. It then trailed straight towards her. She made a run for it and nearly didn't make it as the ground crumbled right under her, almost taking her with it to be swallowed up._

 _Fortunately, Aqua made a huge jump and landed safely on the remaining edge of the now crumble road, now further way from the castle has the huge gap of ruined debris separated her from the road. She then gazed up at the castle again, and noticed, in the amist of the road being destroyed by the darkness, time suddenly fast forward from mid-night to five-o'clock before stopping._

 _'_ Time fast foward itself? _' Aqua thought, puzzled. She then heard a ticking sound behind her, and turned around, to see a glowing strange gears that floated, as though frozen in time._

 _"A gear of time?" Aqua questioned, before taking a deep thought. As she had learned since falling and becoming trapped in this realm, as well as there was no sun, no moon, no sky, that meant that time did not exist here either. Except...for that clock, she realised._

 _Maybe the gears have something do to with this. Deciding to test out her theory, Aqua approached the frozen gears, before summoning Master Eraqus's Keyblade, and with a hit from the Keyblade, Aqua slammed against the gears which then, by her strength, or possibly the power of the Keyblade, the gears suddenly reacted and moved, before slowly glowing and then floated up. Then it zoomed right into the castle's clock._

 _As Aqua watched, the time on the clock then moved one hour backwards, and the road began to reform itself, as though time was going backwards. "I knew it." Aqua realised. If she found more of these gears, then maybe she could restore the road leading towards the castle and then she'd be able to reach it._

 _Once she had done so after finding four more, while fighting against the residents of the Realm of Darkness that were not the Unversed, Aqua managed to safely reach the castle this time, while wondering where the people of this world had gone to. Maybe despite the world having fallen into darkness, it's people managed to stay behind and perhaps gone to another world, despite that it would break the world order._

 **(~Feelings of Guilt Theme(Lightning's Theme*Radiant*)-Lightning Returns FFXIII~)**

 _As she reached the steps of the castle that lead up to the ballroom, Aqua sighed in sadness, thinking about how time ran backwards on the road. "I wish I could really make time go backwards." she said to herself as she gazed up at the dark sky that the only light it held was the blue glow implanted by it's walls, as though she was either in a gave or inside a stomach of a monster that swallowed her up._

 _"To the night where I would gaze at the stars with my best friends." She continued as she reached out skyward, as though praying for them to come to her. She then sighed and lowered her hand, and gazed down, realising she was doubting herself again. Aqua tried hard not to cry. She missed her friends terribly. It was difficult._

 _"Aqua."_

 _Gasping, Aqua turned around quickly, and to her shock, as a familiar man, but unlike the last time she saw him, he was like before...before Xehanort possessed him._

 _"Terra?" Aqua gasped as she watched one of her friends walk down the stairs before stopping. "What are you doing here?" she asked. No...did this mean that, despite having somehow regained control, he didn't make it? But he just stood here, smiling at her, not saying anything else. He even looked still._

 _Aqua reached out to grasp his hand into her own, but instead, her hand went straight through and Terra's body began to glow in golden light. Gasping at first as she withdrew her hand, she then realised that this was only an illusion of Terra, a memory. She also realised that, deep down, Terra and Ven were still in her heart, telling her not to give up. Like when their keyblades had saved her from the giant residents of the darkness that attempted to kill her._

 _She then understood and smiled in sadness and understanding as the illusion of Terra vanished. Aqua then gazed at the town behind her again, and became relieved that at least the people of this world are safe in the Realm of Light. She would find a way to return home, eventually. She didn't know how long she was here, but she knew, she had to not give up._

* * *

 _ **Back in the Present.**_

In the hallways of the castle in Radiant Garden, Aqua paused in her steps as the memory of her time trapped in the Realm of Darkness came to her. Mickey, Riku, Terra, Isa, Cloud, Zack, and Myde who, by Isa's reluctanted agreement(and with a warning to the former slacker of the Organization not to get in anyone's way) noticed that their friend had stopped, and turned to gaze at her, and then became worried when they noticed the uncomfortable and somewhat sad look on her face.

"Are you okay, Aqua?" Zack asked, worriedly.

"I-I'm fine. Just thinking." Aqua replied. But in truth, she wasn't fine. Deep down, her thoughts returned when she was rescued by Xion, and everything she learned summed up on what happened for the past twelve years after she sacrificed herself to save Terra...and inadvertedly rescued Xehanort, giving him the chance to continue his plans and ruin so many lives, forcing Mickey to take action, the Keyblade choosing Sora, Riku and Kairi into the ongoing war of Light and Darkness.

It was because of her, she acted on instinct rather than fufilling Terra's wish to end him, for the sake of the worlds. Aqua failed her friends. She failed them, and she knew, she had doomed the worlds to Xehanort. Maybe it was because of her that Chaos and Bhunivelze went further into their own plans, and if the latter awoken once more, who knows what would happen.

"It wasn't your fault, Aqua." Mickey spoke up, as though he knew what his friend was thinking. After everything was clear on how this all unfolded, he knew, she was blaming herself. When Aqua gazed at him, he lowered his own head in shame and admitted, "I thought after the terrible things that happened to you, Ven and Terra that Xehanort was stopped for good. But I didn't think...that he somehow took over Terra's body. I should've stopped him and maybe saved Terra sooner, but I was blind."

"Even so," Aqua finally admitted. "...It's because of me that the worlds suffered."

"Don't let your sins overcome you, Aqua." Cloud spoked up, firmly, which caused everyone else to gaze at him in confusion and surprise, as he continued, "You have to forgive yourself for what happened, especially since you were given a chance to save them with Sora's help. All of us make grave mistakes in life. When Zack died, and when I nearly gave in to Sephiroth's control, I always felt that everyone blamed me and so, I blamed myself. Vincent was the same; That's why he slept for thirty years, because he wanted to atone for his sins."

"Instead of forgiving himself?" Mickey asked. It did made some sort of sense. Vincent hid his feelings from the world, but deep down the man continued to blame himself for whatever happend. It was similiar with Cloud, and the latter wanted revenge against Sephiroth.

"I once asked if Sins are ever forgiven," Cloud shrugged, "And he told me, that he never tried. That's when I realised that we were both similiar and that answered my own question, since I never tried either, up until recently."

"And what did you find out, buddy?" Zack asked to his friend.

"Sometimes, sins are forgiven." Cloud answered. "And do your best to think about the good memories that will never disappear."

"Never tried...and sometimes they are forgiven." Aqua repeated to herself. The good memories what would never disappear. Maybe that's what Terra and Ven were trying to tell her during her time trapped in the darkness; Forgive her sins and always believe, always think about the good memories to keep going. Maybe she was dwelling herself too far into her guilt that she nearly lost sight when she was reuighted with her friends.

Cloud's words seemed to affect Mickey, Isa, Zack, Riku and Terra as well, because they all thought deeply about their own sins and things that they either failed to see or did terrible that they'd regret later in life. Lea once nearly drowned in his guilt, but with Sora's help, he managed to try and move on, and by either miracle or sheer luck, Cosmos gave them the chance to have a second chance and a second life. Besides, Master Xehanort and his Keyblade are gone, Organization XIII is finished, Hojo was dead, Deepground disappeared, and Terra and Ven were saved.

"I guess you're right." Terra thought, thinking back when Xehanort tricked him all those years ago. "Besides," he gazed at Aqua and continued, "It's not your fault, Aqua. Neither is Mickey's. We can't let the past get to us now. We're here, and we going to do our best in our upcoming battles against Chaos, and if we have to, Bhunivelze."

Finally, Aqua sighed and nodded, "Right. It'll take a while to catch up for the last twelve years, but we can't give up. Not now." her resolve suddenly back. The only person who couldn't return was Eraqus.

Another person, in Mickey's case, was Ansem the Wise. But those could not be helped. Eraqus must've chosen that his time was up, and Ansem the Wise did sacrifice himself and knew that he would not return.

With these words, everyone else's resolves, even Cloud's, returned, and they all nodded in agreement with the female Keyblade wielder. As the others then continued on into the halls, Aqua and Terra stayed behind a bit, glancing at each other.

"...I missed you and Ven so much." Aqua admitted. "In the Realm of Darkness, you both saved me with your Keyblades, and came to me as illusions. I still don't know how or why, but that made me go on while I was trapped in there."

Terra, somehow understanding where his friend was coming from, went up closer to her and he gently held her chin to have her gaze at him. "I missed both of you too, Aqua." he said. "While I was in a crossing against Xehanort in our hearts, I never stopped thinking about either you or Ven. I vowed that one day, I would set things right." **(~End Feelings of Guilt Theme~)**

"How...how did Xehanort possess you?" Aqua questioned hesitatedly.

Her friend sighed as he gently lets go of her chin, and let his hand fall to his side. Terra than said, "I went astray again, and let the darkness overcome me. I wasn't able to stop Vanitas to attack you and Ven, because Xehanort prevented me. They were going to hurt Ven and kill you. I fought against Xehanort and won...but in reality, it was the opposite."

* * *

 _ **Flash-Back; During the events of Birth By Sleep-Terra's tale.**_

 _After Terra had defeated Master Xehanort, the latter kneels to the ground, plunging his Keyblade into the grey earth for balance. He holds on to it, his breath heavy and wheezing. Most likely due to that since Xehanort was pretty much 80 years old, he was too old for this because Terra was much younger than him. The younger man walked up towards the former master in hatred when all of the sudden, there was a loud explosion and the ground briefly rumbled before stopping._

 _But Terra's eyes never left Xehanort, until..._

 _"There, you see?" Xehanort asked, smiling in pleasure as he pointed behind Terra who hesitated to look, believing it to be a trick, but Xehanort remains_

 _constant. He turns around to witness a great pillar of light. "The X-blade has been forged!" Xehanort grinned as he stood._

 _Terra's eyes widened in horror as he took a few running steps towards the light, crying out, "Ven!" realising that it was too late. Vanitas had merged himself with Ven, creating the X-Blade._

 _"And now, Terra, it is time for the final union!" Xehanort declared, as he turns his Keyblade around, holding it by the blade close to his chest, before thrusting it slowly into it, which a beam of light shoots out and Terra whirls around. The younger man's eyes widened in shock at this._

 _Why did Master Xehanort stab himself with his Keyblade? He knew that doing so would cause his heart to be lost and his body to disappear, so what's going on? Terra didn't like this at all, and with good reason._

 _"At last, our moment is here." Xehanort continued as he opens his arms and a circle of light eminates from his pierced chest. His Keyblade fades and an orb, shimmering with light, floats out of his body. It was his heart. "Out with the old and brittle vessel, and in with a younger, stronger new one!"_

 _So this was what Xehanort wanted? Terra backed away slightly. Of course, that's why Xehanort wanted him to give into the darkness; Through impossible and unspeakable realization, Terra's own heart would be lost forever, while his body...it would become Xehanort's new body forever. This was part of the evil master's plan all along!_

 _"I swore I would survive...and be there to see what awaited beyond the Keyblade War!" Xehanort continued, before concluding evilly, "And now it is your darkness that shall be the ark that sustains me!" and with an unspeakable command, he thrusts his arm, pointing at Terra, which his heart, following the command, flew straight towards Terra in high-speed._

 _Terra quickly reacted by summoning his armor since he knew it would protect him from the darkness. Unfortunately, he was too slow and too late, as the heart of Xehanort encased itself into Terra's body just as the armor covered him. Terra stands with his armor encased in a veil of darkness, groaning in pain. Xehanort closes his eyes and fades into points of light that scatter._

* * *

 _ **End of Flash-Back.**_

Aqua gasped, her eyes wide once Terra paused in explaining in what happened. How could Xehanort have the power to do that? Not even Master Eraqus told her about this. Did the late master know? She wished she could ask now, but he was gone.

"But then...he would've truly won." Aqua whispered.

"I know." Terra agreed, "But then, I remember my mind somehow encasing itself into my armor, forming it into...well, I guess some kind of Lingering Will. I fought Xehanort who possessed my body and won but...I was unable to regain control. My armor is still in the Keyblade Graveyard, and my mind went back, but at same time, I was still there, up until Sora and Riku's Mark of Mastery Exam."

Aqua lowered her head, as her guilt began to rise up again, and she whispered, close to tears, "I'm so sorry."

"Shh." Terra said gently. He then gently pulled her into an embrace, in which Aqua embraced him in return, her head resting on his shoulder. "It's not your fault." he told her, doing his best to comfort her.

Aqua suddenly felt in strange peace. She made a note to herself to give Ven an apology and hug him when they reuight later after this mission in Port Royal and in Olympus Coliseum. She couldn't drown in the guilt of the dark memories. Xehanort was gone now. He would not come back, not ever. She has her friends again, she was back where she belonged. More than that, Aqua realised, the way Terra was holding her, she didn't want to be released from his embrace just yet. She then realised that what she told him was true to her feelings.

She was in love with him.

Suddenly, an awkward sound of someone clearing their throat snapped both Aqua and Terra back to reality, causing both of them to look at the doorway to find Riku and the others standing there, having realised the two of them were absent and had gone back to find them, only to find...Terra and Aqua in an embrace that made the faces of Riku, Isa, Cloud, Zack, and Mickey grow warm and bright pink in embarrassment. It was Riku who awkwardly cleared his throat.

Myde on the other hand, found this scene adorable, and even glared at Riku, grumbling to him like an immature teenager, "Way to ruin the romance, dude."

Realising what Myde was talking, both Aqua and Terra quickly drew away from each other, before looking away in embarrassment, their faces glowing bright red. This only made everyone else glare at Myde, to which Isa then said as though he was a teacher, "Okay, you obviously want another lecture, so I think we'll go back to the old lesson regime." and he done so by tugging Myde's ear so hard that the latter yelped out in pain which was comical.

Ignoring Myde's comical groan, Isa then gazed at the other two and said, "Sorry about that." he knew he'd regret in letting Myde come with them. Too late to change his mind now.

' _So much for the date._ ' Zack thought in his mind, since he knew, despite that Aqua and Terra were both trying to express the denial, the two of them obviously were meant for each other. Oh well. He'll have another chance someday.

"It's alright." Aqua replied to Isa. "L-let's get going." her face still uncomfortably warm.

Wanting to avoid the further awkwardness, the others nodded in agreement, and continued on through into the halls to find Aqua's Keyblade and armor, while Isa continued to tug Myde by pulling him by the ear, dragging him along, everyone else pretty much ignoring his childish complaints.

As the group continued on, suddenly Terra felt the urge to go though another corridor, and for some reason, Mickey felt that something was amiss as well. So he led the others into Ansem's computer room, which Isa himself was inside not so long ago. He then remembered what Ienzo told him and the others earlier.

* * *

 _"Perhaps the_ "Chamber of Repose" _." Ienzo suggested._

 _Isa's eyes widened in shock, while everyone else in Merlin's house were confused. "You know where it is?" he asked. He recalled, as Saix, he and Axel both tried many times to find it and failed. No one else would say anything._

 _"That was where Xemnas would go sometimes, yes." Ienzo confirmed, "He would go there, speaking to a 'friend'. But no one except for Xemnas knew who that was. Xigbar knew better than any of us, but even he desired to know."_

* * *

They entered the room, and Aqua noticed the giant portrait and she sighed. It was portrait of Xehanort possessing Terra's body. She shook her head, telling herself that this wasn't the time to dwell into the dark past, and followed Mickey and the others into the computer room.

"What's this?" Myde asked as he looked around.

"This is where Ienzo, Braig, Dilian, Aeleus and I awoke." Isa said as he remembered the spot he woke in up actually not so long ago. In fact, it was here when Lea and Roxas both saved him from Braig and Xehanort's past-self.

"Ansem did a lotta research here too." Mickey spoke up as he gazed at the computer that also held not only Tron, the computer program that was a friend to Sora, Donald and Goofy, but once also held information on Ansem himself, and well, nothing else that the trio were able to find a year ago. "In fact, this is where Sora, Donald and Goofy found a picture of him too."

"So wait," Cloud realised as he looked at the blue-haired man. "This is where Xehanort killed not only the other apprentinces, but also killed you and Lea?"

"What were you doing here anyway?" Zack asked, "You guys couldn't've been more than just teenagers back then."

"Yeah, Lea and I were both sixteen at the time, eleven years ago." Isa replied, before shrugging as he admitted, "We both wanted to explore this place when we were children. When we finally managed to break in without getting caught and thrown out, well...Xehanort killed us with his Keyblade. I did what I could to prevent Lea from being killed by sacrificing himself, but...I only delayed his death."

"So what happened to Ansem?" Aqua asked.

Mickey sighed, and said, "He was casted into the Realm of Darkness, but then I guess he managed to gain the power of darkness to at least get himself out and use that power for transport. I didn't know at the time until last year, but he disguised himself and took on the name as DiZ when Xehanort stole his name. I guess it was after I met up with him and told him about how worried I was when I sensed that the darkness was still lingering."

"I don't think I remember seeing any of this. But then again, I was trapped inside Xehanort's heart, and tried for years to regain control." Terra sighed, as he gazed around at the room. He then asked, "But, where is the real Ansem now?"

"He's gone." Mickey replied, memories of his old friend's sacrifice returning to his mind, and he tried to hold back the urge to cry. "He used some kind of machine to try and encode Xemnas's Kingdom Hearts into data, but it was no use. I tried to save him, but he didn't want me to. The machine exploded and, well, he disappeared, Xemnas's Kingdom Hearts got ruined, and that's how Axel got his heart back and Lea came back."

"It was also when Cosmos allowed Lea's heart to return to Axel, restoring and merging them back to a single being." Isa added, recalling what Angeal told him, Lea, Cloud, Zack(who both nodded in agreement), Roxas, Reno and Rude back in Edge in Midgar.

"And when Cosmos brought Angeal back." Zack added. "Not to mention woke Genesis up and everything."

Myde gazed around at the group, completely clueless as he leaned against a close door at the opposite side of the room, his arms crossed. But as he was about to ask what the others were talking about, all of the sudden the door then slid open, causing him to cry out in alarm and he fell backwards before rolling down cannon-ball style, down the long stairs in a huge Manufactory before landing on top of a lighted panel. which caught everyone else's attentions as they raced up to see if he was alright. Just then, to their confusion, as soon as they all stepped onto the panel while Myde groaned as he sat up, holding the back of his head, cringing, the floor before them slides open from the center and lights up.

"What's this?" Riku asked, curiously.

"A secret door underneath the floor?" Myde guessed, blinking.

"Sure looks like it." Mickey agreed. "But we'd better be careful. Who knows what we'll find down here."

The others nodded in agreement, and Myde, knowing that he was stuck in going with, stood up and quickly followed the others as they passed him down a long, winding ramp in a spiral hallway, while the floor closes behind them. He then muttered as he looked around, "This someone's whacky idea of a fun house in a castle or what?"

"Nah, it's not that scary." Mickey thought. "Gosh, even Wonderland's scarier."

"Yeah, I have to admit, despite all the bright colours and not supposed to be scary, Wonderland does give me the creeps." Riku admitted with a shrug. He'd been there at least once when Maleficent tricked him into working for her two years ago. Sora when there as well, he recalled.

"I didn't pay any attention to it, but there was one time I remember as Saix that Roxas and Luxord returned from a mission there, and," Isa shuddered at the memory as he continued, "Luxord came back as a giant, and I refused point blank to allow him to stay that way, and ordered him to return in order to regain his normal size."

Terra quirked a disbelieved eyebrow, before muttering, "I guess it's a good thing you did." with Aqua, Riku, Mickey and Myde all nodding in agreement.

"Okay, I guess that's one world I'd like to avoid." Cloud thought as he listened in on the conversation. Even just the description of Wonderland itself was probably going to be enough to give him nightmares.

"Yeah, no kidding." Zack agreed, shuddering. "And I thought the Underworld was bad enough, and that's saying something."

"I'm not so sure which is worse; shrinking down to size or growing into a giant." Aqua thought, which had the others gaze at her in confusion. When she realised why they looked confused, especially Terra, she giggled in slight embarrassment, and explained her first adventure after briefly meeting up with Terra in the Castle of Dreams as they continued down the ramp, while they all made sure not to get distracted and look around for any kinds of danger.

When Aqua finished, the others all glanced at each other, as Mickey looked rather frightened as memories of his earlier memories came back to him, while Myde blinked, before muttering, "That's it. There's officially no such as thing as a _normal_ world."

"Says someone who tended to slack off in random worlds to avoid work." Isa smirked, and couldn't help but laugh at the memory. Back then as Saix, he would've found it frustrating and irritating. Now as himself, it was actually pretty funny. "And I thought Lea was a lazy bum."

"Hey, Axel tended to always sleep in until mid-day _everyday_." Myde pointed out as he pouted childishly.

"What is it about Lea and Sora and falling asleep to be lazy bums?" Riku thought shaking his head.

Even Cloud couldn't hide a smirk as he shook his head. He never thought of Sora ever being lazy. But then again, he still didn't know the kid that much. Then again, he'd come to respect Sora as a lucky kid anyway. Aqua couldn't help but giggle, and while Terra knew what she was laughing at, the others didn't.

"What's so funny?" Riku asked.

"Sorry." Aqua laughed, "It's just that you and Sora, Lea and Isa and Myde would all make the weirdest brothers." which made the others blink in slight shock, before the all chuckled with her as well.

The group then ceased their laughter and paused in their steps as they came to a stop at the bottom of the ramp, finding themselves in front of another door that automatically opens up, revealing a white hall on the other side with several barred and diamond-windowed cells with digital locks. The sudden nervousness lingered and began to form in the group's stomachs, before they all glanced at each other, and slowly and cautiously as possibly, they stepped in and checked every door, though none of them could be opened, which made them to keep going.

Eventually, the group arrive at the end of the hall to the last door avaliable, and glanced at each other, before nodding. Mickey decided to go first, and carefully but bravely and boldly approached the door. As he is about to touch it, he gasped softly as it opened by itself, causing him to jump back and summon his Kingdom Key-D Keyblade just in case while everyone else stood in defense, expecting something to happen.

But inside, it was just a seemingly empty white room with black chains and Nobody symbols lining the walls and floor, a single chair in the middle and, as the group carefully stepped in, a seemingly blue figure lying at the end of it. It wasn't until the group got closer when they realised it wasn't a person at all. Mickey, Aqua and Terra all had their eyes widened as they recongised what it was.

A pile of blue armor lay on the floor next to a rainfall keyblade.

"What're my armor and keyblade doing in here?" Aqua asked as she approached her armor and her Keyblade, her actual Keyblade she hasn't used in twelve years. She knelt on her knees, and reached out, grasping the handle of her keyblade. She closed her eyes as she felt the familiar warmth of her weapon which then glowed in light, as did her armor. All three then glowed in light which then faded moments later. While Terra and Mickey realised what just happened, everyone else were stunned in awe.

Aqua, now with her armor on her, and her original Keyblade in hand, stood up, before deactivating her armor and back into her normal clothes, and desummoned her Keyblade back into her body. Now like Roxas and Xion through sharing, Mickey and Sora(who would use the magic from his clothes), Aqua could once again wield two Keyblades.

"Holy..." Zack muttered.

Myde lets out an impressed whistle, and said, "That's a cool armor ya got there. Wish I had one."

"The question is, why were they here?" Riku thought, repeating Aqua's question.

Mickey thought deeply about this, before saying, "Hmm, I guess after Aqua sacrificed herself into the Realm of Darkness, maybe Braig led them to Xehanort in Terra's body, not only bringing Xehanort in when he briefly lost his memories, but also bringing Aqua's armor and Keyblade and locked them into this room."

"Of course." Isa realised. "This is the Chamber of Repose. Terra was still inside Xemnas, but..."

"I didn't know at the time. It was in a major confusion." Terra concluded, realising where Isa was coming from.

"Am I the only one lost?" Myde asked to Zack who shook his head, indicating that the latter was just as confused as well.

"It makes sense." Aqua agreed with the theories. "But then, that means Braig knew I wouldn't come back."

"And you were never meant to return." A deep unfamiliar voice spoke, alarming the group who turned around quickly, and saw man in purple, glaring at them through the doorway from the hall.

 **(~Caius Ballad's Theme-Lightning Returns FFXIII~)**

At the sight of this man, Riku's eyes widened as he recongised the man and a memory hits him hard. Mickey recongised him as well.

* * *

 _Mickey cries out and when Sora and Riku both turned to look, the king was thrown back by a burst of energy, causing him to hit the ground and lose his Keyblade._

 _"Your Majesty/Mickey!" Sora and Riku both exclaimed in horror, and then, all of the sudden, young Xehanort then just disappeared, while the time spell around the room begins to waver, and strangely enough, the figures of Deepground, and Kadaj's group also began to disappear._

 _"What's going on?" Sora asked, shocked, before sensing another pressence and looked up, to see an unfamiliar man in a dark purple outfit, with a monsterious like weapon in his hand, and sinister look on his face, standing on one of the thrones, glaring down at them._

 _"You cannot change your fate, Keyblade wielders. You may destroy Xehanort, but the real war will soon begin, not the one you are expected to enter, but one that will decide the fate of all life." said the man before he vanishes into darkness._

* * *

"You!" Riku hissed, as he, Mickey, and everyone else who instantly realised by the other two's expressions that this man was trouble and all summoned their weapons, including Myde who knew that it was his best way to defend himself.

"You were all fools to believe you would be the ones to save the Realm of Light. It is impossible." The man continued.

"Who are you?" Isa demanded, his own Keyblade out for once since he knew he needed to use it more often than not.

The man just continued to glare at the group, ignoring Isa's question and said, "No mortal will have the power to stop the dark gods from going into battle against the gods of light. Mark my words, warriors of light. This was planned many years ago."

Before any of them could demand any more questions, the man then disappeared into a corridor of darkness before they could stop him. **(~End Caius Ballad's Theme~)**

The group all glanced at each other worriedly, before Zack asked the question everyone else was thinking, "Who was that?"

"I don't know." Cloud thought, "But...he kind of reminded me of Sephiroth."

"He attacked us when Sora, Mickey and I tried to save Rufus and Vincent in the Realm of Sleep." Riku said. "What did he mean by, ' _the real war will soon begin_ '?"

"Dark gods going into battle against the gods of light?" Terra repeated the words the man told them. "Did he mean the gods in Olympus Coliseum?"

"We should go there right now." Aqua told her friends. "I fear that Hades could already be siding with Chaos."

The group nodded in agreement, knowing that now that they found Aqua's keyblade and armor(and her glider), they had to make haste in reaching Olympus Coliseum to meet up with Angeal and Genesis and then locate answers, and if they had to, join up with Sora and his group at Port Royal.

* * *

Back in Midgar, Roxas, Vincent, Rufus and Turks arrived back at the WRO headquarters and spoke with the Commissioner of the Organization, Reeve Tuesti, the former director of the Urban Department of the ShinRa company, then arrived at the cells where Shalua and Shelke were held in. The two sisters knew something Roxas, his friends and their allies didn't, and it was time to get the Rai sisters to give them answers that they needed.

Tseng and Elena were there, waiting for them just outside of the cell door. Both of them were banaged with small patches on their faces, Elena's left arm was almost heavily bandaged, and while Roxas and Vincent couldn't see it, Tseng's chest was banaged as well underneath his suit.

"Are you alright, sir?" Tseng questioned to Rufus.

"Perfectly fine, Tseng. Thanks to Roxas, Reno, Rude and Roxas's friends, the threats of Hojo, Xehanort, Deepground and the Remnants are cleared. However, our concerns lie in a different reach." Rufus replied, before stating, "But we will worry about that conversation later. I trust Shalua and Shelke Rai have not made any attempts to escape?"

"No, sir. They had not made any attempts whatsoever." The Wutaiian Turk confirmed.

"Good. Then it's time to interrogate them." Rufus ordered. "Roxas and Vincent are to be present as well." gesturing at the said two who both nodded. While Roxas was a bit nervous on the interrogation since he'd never been in one before, Vincent's expression was the same since leaving Yen Sid's tower.

"Yes, sir." All four of his Turks nodded.

Reno then leaned over to Roxas and whispered, "Just a fair warning, kid. The four of us are going to be pretty scary, so I suggest you don't comment on what we do and just concencrate on asking the two ladies. Got it?"

The blonde-haired teen blinked in suriprise at the seriousness in red-headed Turk's tone in his voice. Even now, it was a little scary. Back in the organization, Roxas knew about Axel's reputation as an assassin, well, at least he was told by Lea after Xemnas was defeated. How Axel was cold and cruel before Roxas and Xion came alone, which then, once the latter two came, the redheaded Nobody began to return to the teenage boy that he was before losing his heart, and had also become a big brother to them. Lea once admitted that he always wanted to have siblings and he didn't care if said sibings were brothers or sisters.

Despite not being releated, now Lea had two brothers in Roxas and Isa, and two sisters in Xion and Namine.

But Roxas barely knew Reno who was similiar in personality with Lea, and the two were identical. But the former redhead is a Turk. Who knew what Turks do. Cloud and Vincent seemed to know him better, and Reno is, thus far, the youngest male of the Turks, while Elena was the youngests of the Turks and possibly the only female of the team.

So the former Nobody of Sora decided to take Reno's advice and nodded, a bit nervously. Reno then grinned and offered the teen a small grin, "Ah don't sweat it, kiddo. When you see what we're about to do, that'll be nothing compared to what we Turks did years ago. Believe me, I was far worse, and the Turks were far more imidating and scary. Heck, one Turk named Balto-he even would give _me_ nightmares for what he would do on the job."

"After everything that's happened, shockingly I don't think that's anything compared to...you-know-who." Roxas admitted, though he was a bit spooked on the description of the Turks.

Reno blinked, before he chuckled nervously before standing up straight, and rubbed the back of his head, muttering, "Yeah, I have to admit. Now that you mentioned it, that thing back in, whatever that place was, is a lot worse that I kind of had trouble sleeping last night."

The conversation was cut off when the cell doors opened, and Roxas decided to continue the conversation with Reno later when the former got the chance. Maybe after the mission. After getting answers from Shelke and Shalua, Roxas planned on going with Vincent to Nibelhiem before joining up with Sora and the others at Port Royal or at Olympus Coliseum. He had a feeling that the former was more likely than the latter.

The two sisters sat, handcuffed to their chairs since it was an interrogation. The WRO army surely didn't take any chances with them. There were other chairs in the room and a table that stood in between Roxas's group and the Rai sisters. The President took a seat on the chair opposite to Shelke and Shalua, gesturing both Roxas and the other Turks to do the same, which they did. Vincent chose to lean against the wall behind him, with his arms crossed in his usual stance.

After a moment's silence, Rufus then began, "I trust the two of you know what we're here for." it wasn't a question. More like a statement.

Shalua and Shelke were both silent, until Reno spoke up, "I'd answer the President if I were you, ladies." in a strong tone of warning. Roxas blinked in surprise. The cheerful and friendly tone from the red-haired man was gone. Now it was replaced by a cold demouner, sounding heartless and sadist, but it did also keep his hint of laziness, but other than that...it was as though Reno was a completely different person, a man on his job, taking it seriously 100%.

None the less, Roxas didn't say anything. No wonder Reno said that the Turks were going to be pretty scary during this meeting. If the Turks were this now, then they probably were worse back then years ago. Kind of like Saix and Xemnas. So the blonde-haired teen decided to keep his mouth shut about commenting on this and took up Reno's advice in thinking about the questions he wanted to ask to the sisters who nearly had him, Lea, Isa, Xion and Namine killed or why they were spying on them, about the vessels thing and all that.

"We know that you want to ask us about why we spied on you and your friends, Roxas." Shelke finally spoke, turning her gaze to Roxas, as did her older sister.

"In that case, then Roxas, you shall begin." Rufus said once more, turning to the younger blonde who, while surprised, nodded before the teen turned his gaze back to them.

Taking a deep breath and hoping to keep his cool, Roxas then began, "Okay. Tell me. How did you know about other worlds?" He figured that asking one question at the time would probably make things less complicated than asking several at the time. It would take longer, but he had to focus.

"Through the SND system, I have the ability to send my mind through a virtial reality and collect data. However, certain ones will start to take over my mind." Shelke answered.

"SND?" Roxas asked, confused.

"Synaptic net dive." Tseng answered the question to the boy. "It's a rare ability that is unheard of. It seemed that Shelke is one of those people with that kind of ability."

"Synaptic net dive?" Roxas asked again, only further confused.

"My specialty." Shelke continued, "While retaining consciousness, I project an image of myself into a virtual reality called a network. I can also use this ability to negotiate with data on the subconscious planes of sentient life forms. However, this often involves a great risk to my own sanity."

"Even people?" Roxas was stunned by this information. Even Vincent seemed interested, and Elena was astonded. Reno and Rude glanced each other, briefly in wonder, before the two men focused back on the two sisters.

"Interesting." Rufus thought, "And you and your sister used this data to possibly get into the minds of Roxas and his friends?"

"Not Roxas or his friends." Shalua spoke this time, and the attention was on her. "Sora."

"Sora? That island kid we met just a day ago?" Reno quirked an eyebrow.

"Sora's heart is unlike any other, despite that he really was just an ordinary boy in body, up until he first wielded the Keyblade." Shalua explained, "I'm sure Roxas could remember, but Sora was in a year sleep when his memories were interfered and altered. From the world where Shelke and I had come from, we were both taken from there to the ruins of Radiant Garden, and had followed Sora since then through the SND, which was also connecting him with Roxas and Xion."

"So that means you know where Xion and I actually come from, about our connections with Sora." Roxas realised. "So that means you also know about what happened to us."

"Yes." Shelke spoke again. "When DiZ hid a hidden data within Sora's heart during his year sleep, I was able to enter Sora's subconsciousness to discover his power to save you, your friends, and those who suffered in the past twelve years ago. However, with the crisis of the worlds, it was better off that Sora never knew about the memories of you, Roxas. I blocked those memories in order for him to only focus on saving the worlds and those he actually can save."

"You're the reason why Sora didn't do what DiZ actually wanted? Not that I agreed with DiZ's idea on his revenge against Xehanort in the first place." Roxas was shocked. No wonder Sora didn't have any clue about him as his Nobody up until Axel and Riku told him.

"DiZ's revenge against Organization XIII would only further the destruction of the worlds." Shalua spoke again. "But then you managed to save Axel through Sora, which gave him the chance to revive as Lea, and then-"

"Then Cosmos woke up and asked Xemnas's Kingdom Hearts to bring back Lea when DiZ's machine exploded, then she asked it to give Lea, Sora and Kairi the power to bring me, Xion and Namine back." Roxas realised. "But that still doesn't make sense in why you both wanted us to disappear and stop Sora from saving Ven, Aqua and Terra!"

"We were told to do so. In order to keep the worlds safe, sacrifices had to be made, because the fates of those losts were never meant to saved. According to our superior, it goes against the laws of the Keyblade." Shelke explained.

"Who is your superior?" Tseng questioned firmly.

Shalua and Shelke were silent for a moment, before the former gazed up with a blank but serious expression and answered, "Master Aced."

This only further confused Roxas and the others, as the boy asked, "Master...Aced?" before glancing at the President, the Turks and Vincent who all shook their heads which told him that they had no clue on who this Aced person was.

"Who the hell is this so called ' _Master_ ' Aced?" Reno asked.

"We cannot say." Shalua said. "All we know is that he has been asleep for many years, that he was supposed to be the superior of all Unions, and superior of the worlds, because only order is enough to keep peace and balance to the Realm of Light. We found him a year ago. He had a Keyblade."

"A keyblade!?" Roxas gasped. But then, what was the Unions thing? None of that made any sense. And this Aced person was asleep, just like Vincent, Ven and Sora?

"When we told him about Sora, and my abilities, Master Aced assigned us to erase those he saved in order to force him to defeat our enemies in the one who wields the Keyblade that once belonged to an ally that turned traitor. Xehanort was not the first person to wield his dark keyblade." Shelke continued.

"That still doesn't explain about why you called my friends and I vessels." Roxas pointed out. "Okay, so I was Sora's Nobody, and Xion was created from Sora's memories of Kairi, but the two of us and Namine are human now. Lea and Isa got their hearts back, and just recently, we managed to save Aqua, Ven and Terra. Xehanort's gone, and Sora and Riku both destroyed his keyblade. We prevented the Keyblade War from happening."

Shelke and Shalua both gapped in surprise, as the latter asked, "Sora and Riku managed to stop Xehanort and destroy his Keyblade?"

"Yeah that's right." Reno answered for Roxas. "As a matter of fact, the two of us Turks and our President were there to actually see it happen. Xehanort's little group, Deepground, the Remnants and Hojo are gone now."

"Our main concern now, is the true Chaos and if he awakens, Bhunivelze." Vincent spoke up for the first time from where he's at. "What do you know about Chaos and Bhunivelze?"

"So Sora managed to prevent the Keyblade war from happening, because he had allies including most of all of you." Shelke thought. "Not only that, the keyblade Xehanort inheritated is no more. But now Chaos has returned. Chaos, the counterpart of Omega and the God of Discord, created by Bhunivelze and the sea of Chaos from the Unseem Realm, and the hearts of those of the world of Gran Pulse and Cocoon."

"Huh?" Roxas, Reno and Elena asked, confused.

"I'm afraid neither of us know anymore than that. All we knew was what Master Aced had told us." Shelke continued, "Xehanort's keyblade, the true eye of evil. It once belonged to another, and it would grant the wield not only the power to extract their own heart into the body of another who encased themselves into darkness, but also to split their heart into twelve pieces, placing them inside broken bodies or voulenteers, turning them into clones of himself."

"So, Xehanort's keyblade could do that?" Roxas asked, concerned. If Xehanort's Keyblade really had the power to do that with whoever wielded it, then it's no wonder Xehanort was able to take over Terra's body, and then place pieces of his heart inside so many people and had almost done so to Isa and Vincent, had Roxas, Lea and the others not saved them. And if Sora and Riku didn't destroy the keyblade, then whoever else would wield it would end up repeating history as Xehanort.

"That's why different forms of groups could not be trusted." Shalua said. "Master Aced believes that only domination and order will keep the balance of the world."

"Then your superior is a bigger of a fool than my father was and I once was." Rufus said coldly to the two women. "Domination will not bring about peace and balance. It would cause nothing more than forming protesters against the one taking control. There would always be enemies in every corner."

' _Peace and Balance is definately not on Maleficent's list. All she wants is to control everything and turn everyone else her slaves._ ' Roxas thought in his mind as the word domination made him think about the evil fairy. He didn't mention this outloud. They had enough problems to worry about.

"Just one more question." Roxas spoke up again, deciding that he should leave soon and get to the bottom of this with his friends. "Who was the first guy to have wielded Xehanort's Keyblade?"

"Master Aced didn't tell us. He said that it was a name that would no longer be spoken." Shelke replied.

"Well then, I suppose this concludes our meeting." Rufus decided since he and the Turks could tell, the Rai sisters were not going to reveal any more information. "The WRO will worry about your sentence later. Thank you for your time, Shelke, Shalua."

"I must warn you, Roxas." Shelke spoke up just before Roxas and the others could step through the door once they stood up. "For what Sora had done, Master Aced says that he is disqualified as a Keyblade wielder, along with Riku and all others who fell to their fates. Even if you do end up meeting him, you cannot defeat him."

Roxas glared at her, and said, "Since when there were qualifications in Keyblades apart from keeping the world order? Besides, Xehanort broke that rule twelve years ago, and for the record, you guys did to. I don't know who this Aced guy is, but don't think we can't defeat him. Sora stopped Xehanort, so Aced is nothing compared to what we're about to face." before leaving the room with Rufus, Vincent and the Turks, the cell closing behind him and leaving the two sisters locked.

But still...who is Aced? And if Xehanort wasn't the first person to wield that gothic Keyblabde...

Then who was?

* * *

 **A/N: A bunch of spoilers to those who haven't got Kingdom Hearts Unchained X and for everyone who didn't see the demo and are waiting for KH2.8 to come out in December this year. I decided to add the characters from KHX(Chi) to expand the reason for Shelke and Shalua's reasons for messing with Lea and the others in the previous story.**

 **Look out for the next chapter.**


	6. Even more Concerns

**Author's Note: I am so bad of keeping up updates. Sorry about that, guys. I don't know if either of you noticed in my other updated story "Life DEFINATELY not Normal", but as I learned, Kingdom Hearts 2.8 will not be released this year. Due to the delay of FFXV, KH2.8 was forced to be delayed by one month to January next year.**

 **Sigh. Square's needs desperate help in thinking before going too far ahead with their updates of games and release dates. Anyway, here's the long waited chapter.**

 **I still don't own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy.**

* * *

 _ **CH 5: Even more Concerns.**_

 _Sora had no idea how he came back to the World that Never Was that was supposed to no longer exist, or at least in the dream version of it. His first thoughts was that he somehow returned to the Realm of Sleep or something, despite that he was still in his original body and not having time-travelled to his 14 year old self, since it was hard to tell after falling asleep on the Black Pearl. Since his Mark of Mastery, Sora was finding it hard to tell if he entered the Realm of Sleep or was simply asleep these days._

 _"_ Why am I back here? _" Sora asked himself. "_ Is...is this a dream, or was I taken into the Realm of Sleep? _"_

 _"Aw, what's the matter, sleepyhead?" A familiar taunting voice echoed around him. Alarmed, Sora looks around for the source of the voice. It was familiar, but how can it be?_

 _Suddenly Sora sensed something and jumped out of the way of a familiar bolt as it strikes the ground, before looking up and gasped in shock. A familiar man in an Organization coat, atop an adjacent skycraper. The familiar black and gray hair, the eyepatch and the single glowing yellow eye, the crossbow weapons. The man then jumped down to street level, gazing at Sora...or, at least that's what Sora thought at first._

 _"You're a part of this?" Sora suddenly heard himself say, but he realised that he didn't say or even thought about it. Instead, it was as though is voice was right next to him. Looking at his left, Sora gasped in shock at the sight of...himself, in the realm of sleep clothing in the body of a 14 year old, except something was different._

 _Rather than the Omega symbol, Sora noticed an X symbol on his...dopplegerself's clothes. The real Sora then realised that this was a dream of some sorts. But how? And why?_

 _"Hey. Let's hit these plot points in order, Sora... Roxas." Xigbar spoke to the dream Sora, by also calling him by Sora's Nobody's name. "First, you must be wondering about your revised itinerary._ "Why am I here, not back home?" _The answer's simple. We brought you to this place!" he grinned, "Hijacked your little slumber party before it started. And ever since, we've been both your companions and your constant guides."_

 _Sora shook his head, stepping back slightly, unable to believe what he was seeing. Suddenly, everything changed all around him, and he found himself in another area of the Organization's world, and to his horror, his dream-self or whatever was lying on the ground, with darkness seeping all around him, and the teenage Xehanort kneeling by his side._

 _"Your heart will sleep forever." Young Xehanort said to the other Sora. "Goodnight, Sora."_

 _The other Sora finally lost his battle against the darkness before losing consciousness. The real Sora was horrified beyond belief, while absentmindly clutching his chest where he could feel his heart at his fingertips. This wasn't what happened. Genesis had made sure Sora stayed out of Xehanort's clutches. Xehanort himself was gone, and so was Xigbar. Why was this happening?_

 _"_ This is what would've happened if your Nobody didn't save that redhead. _" Another voice spoke suddenly next to him, startling Sora again. He turned to his right and blinked in shock and confusion. Standing next to him was another boy who was a spitting image of him, except with multiple differences to tell the two apart. The other boy's spiky hair was black, his eyes were yellow, just like Xehanort's, and his outfit was just like when Riku was possessed by Xehanort's Heartless, except in red instead of purple._

 _"_ Who're you!? _" Sora demanded in a defence stance, not taking any chances._

 _"_ Me? I'm just a ghost. _" The other boy said darkly. "_ Or maybe...a connection between you and Ventus. It's thanks to you that loser's heart even survived while sleeping inside you. Even though he destroyed me twelve years ago, my heart, spirit and mind floated in the darkness. _"_

 _At first Sora didn't understand, but then memories of Ven telling him what happened between him and Xehanort returned, and a mention of his darkness that formed into a being named Vanitas had sounded terrifying. Suddenly it made sense and the young Keyblade Master glared hard at the...apparently ghost of Ven's darkness._

 _"_ I get it. You're Vanitas-Ven's darkness that was taken out by Xehanort! _" Sora exclaimed accusingly._

 _The other boy, Vanitas, smirked and chuckled. "_ Well, at least one teenage Keyblade wielder managed to get me figured out a lot quicker. Looks like you've got more brains than Ventus and Terra put together, just like Aqua. _"_

 _"_ Leave them out of this! _" Sora shouted, having a feeling that he would have to fight. But then suddenly thought of something and asked, "_ So wait, this is a dream. Why are you here? _"_

 _"_ Oh, looks like you've got half the brains then. _" Vanitas sighed, shaking his head as if what he just heard was the most pathetic thing he's ever heard. "_ Like I said, this is what would've happened if Roxas didn't cure that redhead friend of his through you. Without Axel, or Lea, or whatever, the outcome would've been that Roxas and Xion would've still been stuck inside you, Ventus's heart stuck inside you, Namine stuck inside Kairi, and Lea losing Isa to Xehanort by the time he's recompleted, and you wouldn't even know about Genesis. _"_

 _Somehow seeing what he just seen of his dreamself made sense to Sora as he summed up, in slight horror at the very thought of it, "_ So you're saying that if Lea wasn't revived, Roxas, Xion and Namine wouldn't be made as humans, Genesis, wouldn't have woken up, Zack would've still been dead, Aqua would still be trapped in the Realm of Darkness...and Xehanort would've taken me as his vessel. Then Chaos _..."_

 _"_ Bingo _." Vanitas mocked an applued. "_ You figured it out, Sora. For someone who isn't the true Keyblade's chosen one, you might as well be for figuring things out it's no wonder it changed it mind about Riku. _"_

 _"_ Okay, so I'm being shown of an Alternate Universe inside my head. _" Sora thought, before asking skeptically, "_ But what does that have to do with you being inside my dreams? _"_

 _"_ Exactly what I said, idiot. _" Vanitas grunted. "_ I'm a ghost, or a connection between you and Ventus since you kept his heart within your own heart. Yeah, I've seen almost everything you two morons had gone through. _" He grinned sinisterly as he continued, "_ So, I guess you could say that I'm sort of like Roxas. Before you kept Ventus's heart, at your birth, it was your heart that had given him a second chance, which is why I look like a darker version of you _."_

 _Sora's eyes widened at the new information that made half-sense, but at the same time, no sense what so ever. His heart...was the main reason how Ven survived four years after Xehanort extracted his darkness out of the former? At Sora's birth, his heart... But then that meant...was Vanitas inside him now instead of Ven? Or were the two still connected?_

 _The teenager's expression was amusing to Vanitas as he approached Sora who gasped before taking steps back, as the former said, "_ I guess this means that your pirate friend isn't the only one having inner demon problems. _"_

 _Before Sora could ask what Vanitas was talking about, suddenly his head spinned and his vision began to darken. Sora's hand quickly reached to his forehead, though he then realised that he was having trouble breathing, and the last thing he saw was Vanitas smirking, and the last thing he heard was the darkness of Ven say, "_ Don't worry...you're just waking up. See you soon, Sora. _"_

 _The next thing Sora knew, his world went black._

* * *

Bolting upright in the lower cabins on the Black Pearl, Sora panted as he nearly screamed in fright. Looking around while feeling a bit disorientated, memories of the previous night returned to him, before he sighed in relief. His heart raced at the intensed fear of memories of the nightmare he just witnessed. He then frowned in concern as he recalled every single detail from his dreams.

The possibly of what would've happened if Lea didn't get his heart back sooner than a year later. That Xehanort would've turned Sora himself into a vessel. And now...Vanitas could be inside his heart despite having revived Ven. What could this mean? Why did Vanitas appear in his dreams like that? And the only pirate that was Sora's friend was Jack. What did this have to do with the Captain of the Black Pearl?

Groaning, Sora slumped to lie down again to progress on his thoughts, only to come face to face with a familiar face overing over him, and deja vu quickly happened.

"Whoa!" Sora cried out in alarm, before turning and gave the giggling Kairi an annoyed look. "It's not funny, Kairi."

"Sora, I can't believe you're still such a lazybum." Kairi shook her head. "Everyone's been up for an hour now."

Sighing and deciding that it was best not to burden his friends, especially Kairi, on the dreams he just had, Sora shrugged as he stood up, saying, "I guess I haven't slept right last night." stretching his arms and suddenly realised his back felt a bit sore. "Next time, remind me to sleep in a hammock rather than the floor. I've slept on the ground, but the Black Pearl's wood is the most uncomfortable place I've ever slept on."

Kairi sighed before grabbing hold of Sora's arm and pulled him with her up onto the deck as she told him, "Come on, you big baby. What kind of Keyblade Master that oversleeps anyway?"

"H-hey! Kairi, slow down!" Sora startled.

* * *

Another hour later found Sora and Kairi having met up with Lea, Ven, Xion, Donald, Goofy, Jack, Elizabeth and Gibbs on the deck while the rest of Jack's crew were busy with their duties, the new ones, the sour Dulor included, were scrubbing the decks while ignoring the conversation Sora and his friends were discussing. While Sora and his companions shared a few new details to Jack, Elizabeth and a bit stunned Gibbs about Xehanort's demise and the arrival of Chaos which, as Lea had mentioned the night before, was a lot worse than Jack ever imagined.

Though the pirate Captain still hadn't come clean with his deal with Davy Jones or that he was the one responsible for Will's imprisionment onboard the Flying Dutchmen in the first place(though Lea still suspected something was off), Jack had to admit, just the very thought of Chaos would be enough to possibly give him nightmares that were worse than his nightmares with the mutant pirate.

On the other hand, what Elizabeth was revealing was just making the situation in both cases of Davy Jones and Chaos a lot worse.

"Maleficent!?" Donald squaked in shock.

"Yes, that's what she said her name was." Elizabeth confirmed. "I don't know how she did it, but she somehow turn Lord Beckett into a Heartless after he arrested Will and myself on our wedding day." with a grim expression.

Sora and the others were not happy with this.

"Maleficent, I can understand, but who is Lord Beckett?" Ven asked, brows furrowed in anger. He still couldn't believe that Xehanort had told Maleficent about the secrets twelve years ago, and now Maleficent was acting on her own and has been for the past two years. It's even worse when she's recuiting villians from other worlds all over again for universal domination.

Jack's face screwed up in disgust as he answered to Ven's question in strong sarcasm, "Lord Cutler Beckett, is the head of the East Indian Trading Company. Or was before he turned into one of those mutant black yellow-eye creepy thingys."

"I guess that's another wedding that was ruined this year." Lea sighed, remembering when the Forty Thieves crashed Aladdin and Jasmine's first attempt to get married back in Agrabah. "And let me guess, this Beckett guy showed up with no invitation, right?" he asked to Elizabeth. Though he couldn't say that he was surprised. Judging by Jack's distaste in this Beckett, Lea figured that he was right.

"How do you know?" Elizabeth asked, blinking in surprise.

The redhead shrugged, "Like I said, that's the second wedding that was crashed as far as I could tell this year. Only just a little while ago, a bunch of thieves crashed into another wedding, and me, Xion, Rox', Namine and I arrived at the wrong time."

"Just like him to arrive without an invitation." Jack muttered.

While Sora gazed at Jack oddly, Goofy said with a frown, "Gawrsh, that's not very nice of him."

"Did Maleficent say what she wanted?" Kairi asked, concerned.

Elizabeth nodded and explained, "Yes, after Beckett arrested Will and I for helping Jack escaping a year ago, Maleficent arrived and had already turned him into a heartless. She threatened to do the same to us, but then she made a bargain with Will for our freedom if he retrieved Jack's compass."

Xion looked at the others oddly, asking, "Why would Maleficent want Jack's compass for if she wants to just take over the world?"

That's when Sora and the others noticed something on Jack's face none of them had seen before on him. Jack seemed concerned and worried, in a way that was totally unlike of him, and definately unlike of a pirate. It was as if his worst nightmares had nearly come true but had been vanquished before it happened only to suddenly change to that of another nightmare that was coming true. By Jack's description of Beckett, Sora could easily tell that his friend didn't like the head of the East Indian Trading Company, but never once Sora could think of anything worse of of a nightmare for Jack than the Heartless and Organization XIII.

But by judging the look in Jack's eyes instantly told Sora that Beckett could be almost as bad as Organization XIII, though not as bad as Xehanort or Chaos. Now Maleficent was a new worry and nightmare for the pirate, and the threat of Beckett turned into a heartless minion for the evil witch.

"I don't like to think about that, missy." Jack eventually replied to Xion. "By what you mentioned on this Maleficent, it can't be anything good. Possibly a lot worse than Cutler Beckett."

"But she did also make an offering for you, Jack." Elizabeth spoke up, as she withdrew a piece of paper and offered it to him.

"What kind of offering?" Ven asked, having a bad feeling about this.

"A commission of joining her league." Elizabeth answered.

Sora and his companions slightly slumped, as he pointed out, "Oh gimme a break. She already tried that through Pete with Barbossa last year. Besides, Maleficent tells nothing but lies." remembering the evil Pirate Captain who was one of Jack's enemies for the past ten years.

"And I'm not stupid enough to be ordered around by someone who likes to cast evil spells on people." Jack added in agreement as he opened the letter, giving it a once-over. "Well, they look almost convincing."

"Yeah, well, she's one of the people who tricked Riku in the first place." Sora shrugged, shuddering at the memories of best friend being on Maleficent's side two years ago.

"Blah." Jack gagged as he sticked his tongue out while he scanned the paper, as though he tasted something foul and disgusting. To him, Beckett and Davy Jones were bad enough. But now Maleficent was after him just as she did with Barbossa? That's worse than a pirate.

"I thought something was up when we met up with him on the Isle of Dead Meat." Lea frowned with a serious expression. "He was tricked into working for her and didn't say anything, especially when he needed the compass."

"Worse part is," Ven sighed as unpleasent memories came to mind, "She's one of the first people who had Terra cast into darkness in the first place."

"But by judging this Beckett person, I'd say he would've done the same thing, with Maleficent there or not." Lea thought, concerned. "He doesn't sound any different than Organization XIII."

Jack didn't say anything straight away, as he gripped his right wrist as he hissed softly in discomfort and pain, like something burnt him painfully. As if he didn't have enough problems right now, and despite that he was never a fan of Beckett, it still brought back very unpleasent memories even by just hearing the dead man's name. But his greatest fear now was that, from what he heard in the last 24 hours about the true nature of the Heartless and Nobodies, if a Keyblade destroys Beckett's heartless, Beckett himself could return and then he'd be the problem all over again.

"I still don't get why Maleficent needs Jack's stupid compass anyway." Donald thought.

Just then Lea remembered something and turned to face Jack with even more serious concern, and said, "She must've learned about you from Beckett before turning him into a heartless, and if she's after you and your compass, there's only one other Heartless that didn't completely give into the darkness like many others."

"Of course." Jack said, comprehending. "She wants the chest."

Sora, Kairi, Ven, Xion, Donald and Goofy's eyes all widened in shock as they glanced at each other, they all suddenly coming to the same conclusion as both Lea and Jack. "She's after Davy Jones' heart!" Sora exclaimed softly.

"If Maleficent controls the heart, she controls the sea." Gibbs agreed, also having come to the same conclusion, with a serious expression of his own, while giving words to their worst fears.

"Then she'll cast this world into darkness." Kairi added.

"A truly discomforting notion, luv'." Jack said to Kairi.

"Is it that bad?" Elizabeth asked.

Lea nodded with a serious look, "Oh, it's bad alright. You'll be lucky to at least be sent into another world if you avoid being casted into darkness yourself. Believe me, turning into a heartless and creating your own nobody, or just disappearing into darkness is a lot worse than death. For heartless and nobodies and those who fall into darkness, there is no afterlife." he whispered to Elizabeth.

"Bad for everybody." Goofy concluded.

Gibbs had a nervous look on his face. It was already bad enough for pirates to be suffering fate that would spell their doom. But the very thought of anyone, pirate or not, turning into a heartless or things like that would be enough to scar him for life. He then looked up worriedly at the sails that were swelled with a southeastern breeze. "I think there's a bit more speed to be coaxed from these sails."

He then left while shouting at the crew to brace the foreyard, leaving the others to continue the conversation on their own.

"Might I inquire how you came by this and avoided in becoming Maleficent's lacky?" Jack questioned to Elizabeth in his charming voice as he advanced her, which earned several eye rolls from Sora, Kairi, Ven, Lea, Xion, Donald and a confused expression from Goofy.

While Elizabeth had no idea what Jack was getting at, she recongised the gleam in his eyes and replied her short answer, "Persuasion."

"Friendly?" Jack asked, interested.

"Decidedly not."

"I'm surprised you even got out okay." Sora thought, a bit nervously to try and step into the conversation between Jack and Elizabeath. "Maleficent is famous in being such a hag. She can lie through her teeth and well, she's not easy to fight, that's for sure."

"I'll say." Ven muttered in agreement.

Lea sighed as he said, "Will's gonna end up regretting in joining forces with her, because in the end, she'll just turn him into a heartless if he doesn't find out soon."

"Then I guess we find the chest first." Sora decided to the group who all nodded in agreement.

"Will strikes a deal with an evil witch and upholds it with honour, yet you are the one holding the prize." Jack told Elizabeth, before reading the letter aloud what Maleficent offered him in exchange for his compass, " _World Dominion, commision as an ally in the forces to rid the light and seeking worlds beyond imagination._ "

He read it with usual flippancy, though there was no doubt in anyone's minds that Jack tone had some sounding of hatred and distrusting, which, when he heard what Maleficent has done and could do, that left no doubt that Jack refused to do such a thing that the evil fairy has offered. Though Sora had a feeling that Jack had a grudge on Lord Beckett before the man's demise by Maleficent.

Maybe Jack met Beckett in the past? If so, why would Beckett arrest Will and Elizabeth instead of going after Jack? Was it because they helped him escape? Sora suddenly had a feeling it was much more than that if the head of the East Indian Trading Company would've done the same thing Maleficent's doing right now. Somehow, Sora thought back on Rufus who, like Beckett, is the head of a company, and if Cloud had a slight distrust in Rufus, then maybe Sora should ask them about their past later to get a better idea.

As quickly as it came, the edge in Jack's voice was gone and he sounded himself again, though it was clear he had no intention on joining Maleficent, which, despite his still distrust in the pirate, Sora was relieved that Jack wasn't that stupid after all.

"As if I can be bought for such a low price." Jack said as he tucked Maleficent's letter into his coat and turned to leave.

Elizabeth, who was caught off-guard by the move, quickly went over to Jack and told him, "Jack, the letter. Give it back."

"No." Jack replied, "Persuade me."

"You do know Will taught me how to handle a sword." Elizabeth warned, not in the mood to play games.

While Kairi somewhat giggled as she knew where this was going, and Lea tried covering his face with his hand to hide the fact that he was trying not to laugh, though this didn't help since his shoulders were shaking in laughter and he could be heard snickering, Xion was confused by this, and Sora, Ven, Donald and Goofy paled slightly, knowing that Elizabeth who, once upon a time, wasn't that much a fighter, was now even more scary than she used to be with her temper, was actually serious.

Jack wasn't fazed by Elizabeth's words, though. Instead, it seemed to increase his temptation as he turned around and said seductively, "As I said; persuade me."

Looking at him as though Jack's gone completely nuts, Elizabeth then just walked away after a moment. Jack frowned at this almost comically, not having expected to be turned down so easily, and just walked away himself, ignoring the disbelieved looks on Sora and his companions.

"Okay..." Sora muttered, blinking.

"Sora, he's gotta be the weirdest guy I've ever met." Ven noted.

"Aw, who needs to know him?" Donald dismissively waved off.

Goofy on the other hand, thought about the situation and asked, "Hey, y'know. Don'tcha think it's confusing that Jack knows Backet, um, Becker, uh, Bucket...?" though he couldn't say Beckett's name right, as usual, coming up with numberous words to try and say it right, which resulted Donald to facepalm himself in annoyance and impaitence.

"If you're trying to say Beckett, Goof', then yeah, I think you're about that." Lea agreed, having come to Goofy's rescue in pronouncing Beckett's name. "Plus, given how Jack sounded, it's pretty obvious that the two of them aren't friends."

"Who would wanna be friends with Beckett anyway? Especially what he did to Will and Elizabeth." Sora agreed.

"Even when he ruined their wedding." Kairi nodded, slightly disgusted.

"It's almost like the Forty Thieves-" Xion cuts herself off as she suddenly remembered that she and Roxas did promise to tell Sora about Aladdin and Jasmine's wedding a short time ago. She then turned to Sora and said, "That reminds me. Sora, I've got some news for you."

Sora quirked an eyebrow at his former replica and asked, "What kind of news?"

"Heh, oh right. You were friends with Aladdin and them back in Agrabah." Lea spoke up before Xion could continue.

"Uh, yeah. Why?" Sora asked, confused.

"I'll give ya three words with what happened with Al' and Princess Jasmine; They, got, married." Lea answered while using his fingers to count his words on the last words his of sentence. He then looked sheepish and added, "Well, at least try finally did for the third time after the first two attempts failed."

"They got married?" Sora asked, excitedly at the news, before realizing what he and Xion had meant on the thieves part and blinked, "Wait, their wedding got ruined by thieves."

Xion and Lea both nodded as the former said, "Yeah, the Forty Thieves. Their leader being Aladdin's father who didn't know at the time until Aladdin went to find him after realising he was still alive." before she and Lea both briefly explained about the adventure they, Isa, Roxas and Namine went through while on their way to Disney Castle to talk to Mickey during Sora and Riku's Mark of Mastery in the Realm of Sleep, which was after their first visit to this world they were currently in now.

Once Xion and Lea were finished, Sora slumped slightly in disappointment, "Aww...I missed out on their wedding."

"Missed out on who's wedding?" Jack suddenly reappeared, only hearing the ending of the conversation after doing whatever he did, startling the group that they didn't hear him coming.

"Jack, don't do that!" Kairi scolded. "You scared us!"

"Since when were you this quiet?" Lea blinked, surprised.

Jack looked a bit offended by this question and replied, "When it comes to sneaking around, you gotta be." before continuing, "Now then, I believe I've heard there was a wedding that did not involve Will and Elizabeth in whatever conversation you lads and lasses were having."

"Oh, we were talking about two friends Donald, Goofy, Xion, Lea and I know in another place." Sora replied, as casually as he could. "I was just told that they got married not too long ago, which I missed out on."

"Pity." Jack thought. "Don't worry, mate. With any luck, once Will is rescued from the Flying Dutchmen, he and Lizzy will restore their wedding and you would most likely be invited and get to enjoy every moment of it."

Sora couldn't help but smirk and teased, "Sounds like you like weddings if you know so much about them."

"'Course I do. I love weddings." Jack replied with a grin. "If they would like to get married as soon as possible in fact, I could do the honours of marrying them myself."

"You, marrying them?" Lea skeptically. "No offence, but you need a certificate to be a minister to do that." he pointed out.

"Not nescesserly if you're a captain of any ship, pirate or not." Jack told the group, who looked at each other with skeptical and disbelieved looks. After a moment he continued honestly, "No really, it's true."

He made to continue, but then thought better of it, and glanced around the deck where his crew were still working, before gesturing at Sora's group to edge closer to him so he could talk to them a bit more privately. Despite the weirdness of it, Sora and the others shrugged before edging closer to Jack who continued, in a half-whisper, "You see, mates. The rules of marriage is different compared to what you lot are used to, obviously. Besides, I am Captain of a ship. And being captain of a ship, I could in fact preform a...marriage. Right here, right on this deck."

He then went into his charming mode and made to join Sora and Kairi's hands together, as he concluded, "Right...now."

Realising what he meant, Sora and Kairi both blushed heavily at this and flinched away before awkwardly clearing their throats, while Lea and Donald both bursted out laughing and Goofy chuckled, and Ven and Xion both blinked in confusion, glancing at each other on why the others found this funny.

"W-what!?" Sora exclaimed. He then turned to the laughing trio and protested, his face becoming a darker pink, "Hey, come on, guys! It's not funny!"

"T-totally is!" Lea laughed, having a bit of trouble in stopping. "Admit it, Sora. You and Kairi are seeing one another."

"Are not!" Sora and Kairi both protested in unison.

Jack was baffled by this, since even he thought that Sora and Kairi were, ahem, together, and asked, "Why not? You both tend to be pretty close, and obviously thinking about one another, almost the same as William and Elizabeth."

"Yeah, well, why would I ask you to marry us anyway?" Sora asked him. "Being married by a pirate is like asking to go off in a Easter-Themed Halloween party from someone who doesn't have a sense of honor."

"Or decency." Ven added.

"Or a moral center." Donald added.

"Or even personal hygiene." Lea concluded, asking more in a whisper so that the girls wouldn't hear him say to Jack, "When was the last time you had a bath?"

Jack blinked, before answering, "I bathe, and besides, those are trifles." he then turned to Sora and Kairi and added with a grin, "You both will go over each other's sides, I know it."

"You seem certain despite that Sora and I are just close friends." Kairi said, not really believing what Jack was trying to say.

"One word, missy." Jack said in a low, seductive tone. "Curiosity."

"Uh, what does curiosity have to do with this?" Ven asked, puzzled.

Sora, Jack, Kairi, Lea, and Donald all stared at Ven in confusion, while Xion and Goofy just glanced at each other, shrugging in confusion. In the end, Sora, Kairi and Lea all groaned while face-palming themselves, groaning, "Oh, Ven." at Ven's slight gullibeness. Even Jack was facefaulted at the boy's naiveness.

"Oh, Ven, Ven, Ven." Lea shook his head.

"What? What'd I say?" Ven asked, clueless on the looks on the others's expressions.

"Surely you're not that gulliable, mate." Jack said, his tone saying that he hoped that wasn't the case on Ven's cluelessness. Then again, he hasn't known the boy that long, and in reality, Jack had no idea that Ven was actually a twenty-seven year old young man stuck in a fifteen-year old's body. On the hand, things hasn't changed much for Ven at all since his twelve years of sleep.

Sora was about to reply when suddenly he blinked in sudden confusion as, while no one else noticed, behind Ven was Vanitas who nodded in somewhat agreement. Sora shut his eyes when he didn't hear the others even gasp in surprise or confusion, before opening them and found that Vanitas was gone as quickly as he appeared.

Or rather, Sora had just hallucinated. He rubbed his eyes to try and clear his head. Through out the entire nearly two hours, Sora had completely forgotten about his nightmare he had until now. Now the worry of his dream crept up again. Even worse, if Sora was seeing hallucinations of Ven's darkness, then he knew that he was in trouble.

"Sora?" Kairi spoke up when she noticed an uncomfortable expression on her friend's face. "Are you okay?" she asked, concerned.

"Uh, yeah. I'm fine." Sora nodded, "Um...I just...need some thinking to do." and then he hurriedly went over to the other side of the ship, leaving the others behind to their concern and/or confusion.

"What happened with Sora?" Lea asked, in a serious concern.

"Gawrsh, he's not sick, is he?" Goofy thought worriedly.

""Course not." Jack replied, "If it were even sea-sickness, he would've had that the first time we sailed together. But since the lad there grew up near the sea-side, it's very unlikely for him to get sick while sailing."

"Maybe he's tired?" Xion suggested.

Suddenly the memories of finding Sora looking rather out of sorts this morning returned to Kairi as she said, "Sora did say that he didn't get a good night's sleep last night after sleeping on the floor. He said that it was too uncomfortable."

"My ship's not uncomfortable." Jack pouted. Despite that he wasn't that concerned about Sora's tiredness problem, he quickly remembered that Davy Jones seemed to know about Sora and the Keyblade, and his own worries about Maleficent finding the heart makes things even more troubling.

"It is too." Donald said, walking away.

After a few moments, Lea then shrugged and said, "Maybe he's just worried that Chaos might appear outta nowhere. I know I'd be freaking out if that thing ends up showing it's ugly face again. That's enough to give even me nightmares."

"Somehow, I don't think that's the case." Ven thought, with a grave concerned look on his face. "I can't explain why, but, I'm feeling that it's more than what Sora said."

"Like he's hiding something he doesn't want us to worry about?" Xion thought, suddenly getting what Ven was talking about, which brought up unpleasent memories of when she had to hide the fact that she was Sora's replica from Roxas.

Lea's expression turned serious as he said, "Well then, I guess we'd better wait until he's ready to tell us. Not that I'm comfortable with it, since I had my fair share of keeping secrets I wasn't happy about." while awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, as his memories as Axel resurfaced.

While Kairi and Goofy both looked gravely worried, Jack ended up turning around so that the others couldn't see his own expression. It was bad enough that he was hiding lots of things, but the fact that Sora was hiding something that concerned the boy's friends was making things ten times worse.

Whatever it was, it wasn't good news at all.

* * *

Meanwhile, while waiting for Mickey, Aqua, Terra, Riku, Isa, Cloud and Zack to arrive, Genesis and Angeal were just outside the gates towards the Coliseum in Olympus Coliseum while having sparred a little to keep up in shape. It wasn't long before they noticed eight beams from the sky appear and then formed their seven allies, but were puzzled that an eighth person was with them, that looked more like just an one of those punk teenagers.

The two men then decided to worry about that later, and Angeal said, mainly to Zack, "Took you long enough."

"Uh, yeah, sorry." Zack sheepishly said. "Took a bit longer than we planned."

"Right." Angeal shook his head, before gazing at Myde and questioning, "And you are?"

"I'm Myde." Myde replied with a wave.

"Short version-he was one of the members of the first Organization XIII," Isa quickly spoke up before the former ninth member could continue, "He found us in Radiant Garden and we agreed to have him come with us."

"I see." Genesis thought. "Well then, let us not waste anymore time and go on our search for this Hades on new information on Chaos and Bhunivelze."

"I think Hades would just appear randomly when he wants to." Riku shrugged as he and everyone else began their search. "All he really wants is to take out Hercules."

Zack cringed in distaste as he groaned, "Yeah, he has a reputation to just appear out of nowhere. That guy likes to talk and try and con-art anyone he meets."

Cloud nodded in agreement, "I'll say. To me, Hades is more annoying than anything else."

"I don't think anyone likes Hades that much anyway." Terra thought, remembering his encounter with the Lord of the Underworld. "Too bad he's immortal."

"Well, I hope we're not too late." Mickey thought, worriedly. He was still haunted by both the sight of Chaos and what Caius had said back in Radiant Garden. A war of Gods of Light against Gods of Darkness? What could this mean?

"Do you think anyone else would know about Hades' whereabouts?" Aqua thought, knowing that she had no idea how to get to the Underworld without getting killed, since she spent the past twelve years in the Realm of Darkness.

Just then, the very god they were hoping to find instead appeared out of black mist, startling the group into getting into defence stances as Hades mocked, "I'm sorry, did I hear my name mentioned?"

When the Lord of the Dead gazed at the group, he instantly recongised pretty much all of them and groaned, "Oh, it's you guys again. Though I'm surprised to see Chicken-heart and little blue-bird. Haven't seen you in twelve years. I thought you were all asleep or something."

"Did he just call Terra chicken?" Myde asked in disbelief, though he shuddered since he remembered briefly meeting or at least seeing Hades back when he was Demyx a year ago before he ran off and passed Sora and the others.

"And look, if it isn't the little squeaky king. I've heard you from Maleficent." Hades continued as he gazed at Mickey who didn't find this amusing at all.

"Well, I've heard a lot about you, Hades and how much trouble you've been causing to everybody, including all of my friends." Mickey replied, glaring at the Lord of the Dead.

Hades shrugged dismissively, before saying, "Well, if you're all looking for me, I guess this means you all decided to ditch Sora and the other two to come join my side, especially since the two of you returned from the dead."

Cloud scoffed, "In your dreams, Hades. We're not here to join you, even in a million years."

"We want to know if you ever heard about Chaos and Bhunivelze." Angeal spoke in a tone of authority.

Whatever else Hades had expected to hear, the mention of Chaos and Bhunivelze caught him off-guard for once the group had known him. As soon as it appeared, his shocked expression vanished and he returned to his usual self, saying, "Where did you hear those names?"

"It's more of the case that we have encountered Chaos itself." Genesis replied. "You are a God, so it was best if we questioned you despite your, shall I say, reputation of making bargains."

"Chaos is awake?" Hades blinked, this time he couldn't hide his own slight nervousness. Seeing how the group were serious, he then said, "Only a few details. Chaos was created by Bhunivelze who like me, was banished. But unlike me, Bhunivelze had a more serious issues in wanting to re-create everything and being the only god in existance."

"And you don't?" Riku asked, skeptically.

"Hey, look kid." Hades said, getting annoyed. "But unlike those guys lounging around in the Olympus, I have a full time gig, but even I don't have the power to create other deitys like some of them can. Heck, I didn't even go as far as to kill my own mother with that kind of power, and normally, it's against the rules of gods since you can't kill them because we're all immortal."

"So how did Bhunivelze?" Aqua asked while still on her guard. She and the others were not taking any chances.

"If you're thinking about going after him sister, then good luck, because that'll only result in me just seeing your souls just flow into the river of death in the Underworld." Hades said smoothly. "Rumors say that he disliked how his mother created things in peace and other worlds following her, so he figured out how to kill her without turning her into a mortal. The next thing that happened, some chosen one he chose rebelled against him and he just went to sleep in some boring Unseen Realm."

"That doesn't help much." Isa thought, frowning. If that was the case, then there wasn't any way to stop Bhunivelze if he did wake up?

"Oh please," Hades scoffed. "Did you all seriously think you can stop Bhunivelze with those Keyblades of yours? Even Chaos is hard to beat, so good luck in trying to save the worlds this time, kids. Jeeze louise."

Terra sighed, before asking, "Was killing his mother the main reason why Bhunivelze was banished?"

"What else was he banished for? Ruining a birthday party?" Hades asked back in sarcasm. "Hey, I wasn't told the full story, okay. If you wanna get the full details, go ask Zeus." he then grinned and asked, "Now then, are you sure you don't want to come join at my side?"

The others didn't buy this bargain and Cloud was the first to reply bluntly, "Not interested."

"Hades, just for a warning, don't you dare join Chaos." Riku warned as he and the others began to walk past Hades. "He's capable of destroying everything."

"Please, after the distaster with Maleficent, I don't do the other major villian partnership anymore." Hades replied, before muttering as the group were almost out of earsdrop, "Even though I would've liked to ask her out on a date."

Riku and everyone else froze at this, before he, Mickey, Aqua, Terra, Myde, Cloud, Zack, Isa, and even Angeal and Genesis all cringed, groaned and shuddered at the very thought of Hades and Maleficent going out on a date, before continuing on towards the coliseum, while Hades just poofed away to mind his own business(while grumbling at the same time).

"That's an awful thought." Mickey thought.

"Ugh, that's just enough to give me nightmares." Zack shuddered, "I don't even know who Maleficent is."

"You don't want to know, Zack." Aqua shook her head, as unpleasent memories of her encounter with the evil fairy formed in her mind.

But before any of them could continue the conversation, suddenly all of them sensed something and quickly turned around to see an unfamiliar figure plummet straight towards them with a large weapon in hand as he gave our a battle roar, before they quickly dodged out of the way before he could hit them. Quickly, Cloud, Zack, Angeal and Genesis pulled out their swords while everyone else summoned their weapons, Isa and Myde summoning their weapons they used as Nobodies while Mickey, Aqua, Terra and Riku all summoned their Keyblades.

To their shock, the weapon that nearly hit them was a Keyblade as well, similiar to Terra's, but different in design. It's wielder was a tall man in a robe, and a mask that was shaped like a bear that hid his eyes. But by his frown, he wasn't happy.

"Newer generations." The man spoke in a tone of anger. "You should not interfere."

"Who are you?" Aqua demanded.

"My name is no importance." Said the man, "All that matters is that you and the one who broke the chains of the dark Keyblade have broken the cycle and failed to stop the successor from awakening Chaos."

"Gosh, that's not very nice." Mickey pointed out. "We're trying to figure out how to stop Chaos. How do you know about that?"

The man glared at Mickey and replied, "All of you are disqualified as Keyblade wielders."

"Disqualified?" Riku asked, his brows furrowing. "Why do you wield the Keyblade?"

"Silence!" The man ordered. "Only the strong will see to the safety of the worlds. None of you have strength, not even to prevent the war that is coming. Join your friends, and soon, all of you will fall to your doom!"

"Not if I can help it!" Terra yelled as he, Isa, Cloud, Angeal, Genesis, and Zack ran forward to attack the man despite everyone else's protests. But to their shock, the man drew back his Keyblade, before he swung it and an aerial cut of wind knocked them and the others and before they could hit the ground, he pointed his Keyblade to it and a beam of light shot onto it, creating a portal.

"Brace yourselves!" Isa shouted as he and everyone else gave out a cry of alarm before they all disappeared into the portal that was created and soon it closed with them inside.

Once he knew that he completed his task, the man desummoned his Keyblade and said, "None of you or Sora are capable of protecting the Realm of Light. Only I can. I will gather more stronger Keyblade wielders to rule all worlds to secure it. Only domination will prevail. Now then, I must send Sora's nobody as well."

Whoever this man is, things were not looking good at all.

* * *

 **A/N: To those who played Kingdom Hearts X(Chi)/Unchained X, can you guess who the crazy Keyblade wielder in the bear mask is? Meanwhile, I was so looking forward to have Kingdom Hearts 2.8 for christmas, but I guess that's not happening now. I'll have to ask for something else. (Sigh).**

 **Look out for the next chapter. Sorry that it's slow.**


	7. Troubles and Troubled

**Author's Note: Sorry for the major long delay guys. I was having trouble with figuring out how to fit Roxas's position in the beginning part of this chapter before anything else happens.**

 **Well, here's some good news and bad news regarding to the Kingdom Hearts games; Bad news-the development team hasn't even touched the unannounced worlds of the game(meaning that Twilight Town, Mysterious Tower and the Kingdom of Corona are still the only worlds revealled) and that the development of both that and FFVII:Remake are still a way to go.**

 **Good news-2.8 just released yesterday, one day earlier than it's actual release date in Japan. Anyway, we only have two more weeks until the rest of the world gets the game(and the Sora DLC for World of Final Fantasy).**

 **I still don't own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy.**

* * *

 _ **CH 6: Troubles and Troubled.**_

Meanwhile, Roxas was making preperations to head out and meet up with his friends at either Olympus Coliseum or Port Royal with Vincent to figure out what the others had found out so far. Speaking of Vincent, he was off somewhere making his own preperations and Roxas had a feeling that he was thinking about what Shalua and Shelke are told them, Rufus and the Turks earlier. It still troubled him on what the two had said, though. Who was Master Aced? Who was the original wielder of Xehanort's Keyblade? How old was the said Keyblade before Sora and Riku destroyed it?

' _Master Aced? Why is he against us? Could he be just like Xehanort? Or worse? Or even better?_ ' Roxas's thoughts trained back and forth on these.

Sighing, the teenaged former Nobody grumbled, "It doesn't make any sense."

"What'd you expect? Nothing makes sense overnight, you know." A familiar voice spoke out behind suddenly, startling Roxas who whirled around. At first he thought the voice belonged to Lea, but it was Reno who stood there, leaning against the door with his arms crossed.

"How did you get so quiet like that? I didn't even hear you open the door." Roxas asked, a bit stunned.

Reno shrugged, "Part of Turk training to be silent in approaching someone, including the enemy. It's sort become a habit now, actually."

Rather than questioning further onto this, Roxas suddenly chuckled in amusement, which made Reno curious as the redhead quirked an eye-brow. "What's so funny about that?" The Turk asked.

"It's not that." Roxas laughed, trying to control himself. "It's just...when Lea and I were...well, in an Organization ourselves with Xion and Isa long time ago, Lea used to sneak around and stand in a similiar position you're doing right now."

"A match made in heaven, huh?" Reno joked as he smirked, quickly getting the idea.

This only made Roxas confused again as he asked, "Match made in heaven? What does that mean?"

"Wait...you're serious?" Reno asked, blinking at the teen's cluelessness.

"Well...I am Sora's Nobody or I used to be, and well, I never knew that until a year ago and, well, before Riku and DiZ captured me to rejoin Sora, I had no idea that much of anything at all. As Axel had said, I acted like a zombie." Roxas admitted, rubbing the back of his head, sheepishly.

"Who's Axel?"

"Lea is. Axel was his nobody and now it's Lea's nick-name." Roxas answered.

Reno shook his head with a slight exasperated sigh, saying, "Man, do I have a lot to ask about." before teasingly asked, "So would that mean you're the trigger of the upcoming zombie apoculypse?"

"Hey!" Roxas pouted, but still smirked in return none the less.

The two of them shared a laugh at the jokes between themselves. While Roxas knew that Lea/Axel will always be his best friend along with Xion and now with Namine, Isa, Sora and the others included, despite the Turks really being scary like they had been earlier, he found that he could actually get along with Reno. The guy knew how to make light in some kinds of situations.

However, as all situations would go, this laughing matter came to an end when there was a sudden crash, alarming the two of them as they looked around, wondering what was going on. To make matters worse, security alarms went off as emergancy lights flashed red, indicating only one thing that Reno knew too well.

"An intruder!" Reno exclaimed, already springing into action and pulled out his EMR, extending it with a flick of his left wrist.

"How close?" Roxas asked, sensing that something was definately wrong and made to summon his Oblivion Keyblade in his right hand.

"Dunno. You can do some serious fighting, right kid?" Reno questioned, all jokes a side, replaced by seriousness and business, just as he was trained to be.

"Do you have to ask?" Roxas responded.

"Stay focused."

* * *

Vincent fired several gunshots at the intruder before the clips ran out and he was forced to leap out of the way from the attack of surprisingly a Keyblade. As the man in the red cape reloaded with more of the gun casings, Tseng and Elena took over, but the intruder was too fast before he made to swipe at the two Turks who were unforunately knocked into a couple of WRO soldiers. Rufus intending on helping, but was told to stay back by his bodyguards. Rude punched with a powerful punch from his fist at the intruder who then swiped at hime, knocking the taller Turk back and nearly crashed into Reno and Roxas who arrived to see what was going on.

"Rude!" Reno cried out, horrified to see his partner knocked back to the floor.

The redhead then turned to glare at the intruder who was a man in some kind of white coat and a bear mask with a bulky Keyblade and while he and Roxas were shocked on how the intruder got one, Reno wasted no time in charging and with his speed, slashed his weapon against the man with the use of his EMR's electricity, dodging the intruder's slower attacks. Roxas stepped in to help as he leaped into the air before slashing at the intruder right at the side, causing him to stumble a bit while distracted by Reno's speed.

Vincent leaped over and flashed and punched at the intruder with his own martial arts skills, making use of his gaunlet, kicking the man in the face, while Reno kicked the intruder on the side of the face, and Roxas used Firaga to burn the man. However, the intruder managed to evade the attacks and leaped back before creating some sort of mark in the air, creating a powerful light X attack, then thrusting it forward towards the trio who leaped out of the way. Unfortunately, the attack somehow split and knocked Reno and then Roxas and then Vincent, knocking all three of them down, before those attacks went to knock back the other Turks and WRO soldiers who all made a move to attack again but were easily defeated again.

That didn't stop Roxas as he quickly used a potion he saved for later, before standing him and glared at the intruder who, despite his eyes hidden behind the bear mask, was glaring back at him, as the former Nobody demanded, "Where did you get that Keyblade?"

Instead of answering, the intruder grunted, "It is you and your original self and friends who have no clearence of becoming Keyblade wielders, boy. The balance is broken, because of all of you."

"Answer the question!" Roxas shouted, ignoring the fact that this guy had mentinoed about Sora.

Again, the intruder ignored the question and said, "You have no right to exist in this or any world. The laws of existance and hearts have been broken."

"I'd answer the kid if I were you." Reno grunted as he, Rude, Tseng, Elena, and Vincent stood, while Rufus glared at the intruder, not liking where the situation was going. "And personally, we're placing ya under arrest for intruding WRO Headquarters, and that ain't something we let go with a slap on the wrist."

"You all are the ones who are under arrest." The intruder hissed darkly, readying his Keyblade with a growl, "For breaking the laws and knowing too much. Weakness should not be allowed in the Realm of Light!"

"What?" Rufus demanded, thoroughly confused along with everyone else.

"Who are you?" Vincent questioned the intruder who was now obviously no ordinary intruder.

"My name is no importance." The intruder replied. "Once I gather enough powerful Keyblade wielders, I will govern all the worlds to maintain it's balance. Only domination will prevail."

"No." Rufus grunted in return, glaring hard at the madman. "A fool is what you are. Domination will only bring about hate from others towards the leader of ignorance. If you say you will dominate the worlds, then that's no Realm of Light. It's more like Hell."

"Then I will erase all human emotion!" The intruder roared, as he pointed his Keyblade to it and a beam of light shot onto it, creating a portal underneath the group who tried to jump back to avoid it.

Unfortunately, Roxas, Reno and Elena weren't so lucky as the three of them were sucked into the portal. Vincent attempted to save Roxas while Rude grabbed hold of Reno's wrists, and both Rufus and Tseng attempted to do the same with Elena to pull the three of them out. But it only resulted in Vincent being sucked in with them, while the two remaining Turks and their President were knocked back by the intruder who hit them hard into the wall, as the portal closed, leaving Roxas, Vincent, Reno and Elena taken to another world.

With the three other men unconscious, and the WRO soldiers knocked out, the intruder slowly approached to make the killing blow when another Keyblade was whirled out of nowhere and knocked him on the side of the head, causing him to tumble away from Rufus and the two Turks. When the man gazed to his right, to his shock, was a young man in his mid teens, having silver curly hair, blue eyes, wearing a red keffyle, black short jacket with matching gloves and pants, and a white shirt underneath, having a blue belt, as the teenager glared at him.

"Master Aced, don't do this! The war's over!" The boy cried out, almost pleadingly, as his star-designed Keyblade, similiar to Sora's Keyblade but blue and silver and it's teeth shaped like a star.

The intruder, now known as Aced, glared back, grunting in anger, "Ephemer...the traitor. Why are you here, boy?"

"To stop you from doing anything stupid." The boy, Ephemer, answered, before demanding, "Like I said, the war's over and you and I aren't meant to be here. Leave this crisis to those of this world. You're only going to make things worse."

Aced was silent for a few moments, before he backed away as a portal of light opened up behind him, grunting to Ephemer, "You're wrong, child. The second war is only just beginning. Mark my words. You will not escape the conflict the second time." and with that he vanished into the portal which closed, leaving Ephemer alone with the unconscious forms of Rufus, the Turks and WRO.

Ephemer sighed, lowering his head as he gaze at the floor. Aced just doesn't get it. 100 years and still the Keyblade Master still hasn't changed his views of the balance. The boy wished that he could change that.

"Well, first things first." Ephemer muttered as he approached the unconscious people. "Gotta help these guys before I find Sora and his friends and prevent their doom from approaching."

He knew that he still had a job to do, and that the worlds were now about to face even more threats and problems.

* * *

Where Riku, Mickey, Cloud, Zack, Angeal, Genesis, Isa, Myde, Terra and Aqua found themselves was a little shocking, especially when the group had landed in the middle of the ocean with no land close to them. Fortunately, a trading ship came back and hauled them onboard for recovery. Now the group were in the Captain's cabin, along with a slightly shivering Will Turner who had managed to escape the Flying Dutchmen earlier. All of them had blankets around themselves to dry off while the captain and two other men stood with them.

"Strange thing to come upon a longboat and a group so far out in open water." The Captain admitted.

"Well, it's not like most of us had planned it." Angeal shrugged, trying to lighten the mood, even though he shook his head when Zack, Mickey and Myde each gave off a sneeze.

"Just put as many leagues behind us as you can. As fast as you can." Will told the Captain, ignoring what Angeal had said. He already could tell that Riku and his group were like Sora, Donald, Goofy, Kairi, Lea, Xion, Roxas and Namine and was relieved to actually see Isa again.

"And what are we running from?" The Captain questioned.

Myde looked at Will and added, "Yeah, what're you so scared of?"

However, before Will could answer, something at the corner of the cabain caught his eye. It was a beautiful dress, one that he instantly recongised. Standing up and going over to it, in which the worldly travellers, seeing his reaction, got up and followed him, curious on what he found so interesting at the gown. It looked a bit ruined due to weather and days without seeing proper treatment, but it didn't seem to be that old.

"That dress." Will muttered, turning to the three men, "Where did you get it?"

"It was found on the ship." The Captain explained, "The crew thought it was a spirit bringing some omen of ill-fate."

"A ghost?" Riku asked, skeptically. He found that unbelievable and ridiculous. He has heard of high-seas tales before growing up on the islands with Sora and Kairi, but this is one of the stories that was entire untrue.

Mickey seemed to agree, as he said, "That's just silly."

"Oh yes. Exceedingly silly." One of the crew members nodded in agreement, while Will picked up the dress and gazed at it in thought.

"It brought good fortune." Another one of the crew members said, "The Spirit told us, 'Pull in at Tortuga', and we made a nice bit of profit there."

"Off the books, of course." The Captain smiled.

"Tortuga? Where's that?" Terra asked, skeptical.

Cloud and Zack both glanced at each other with skeptical expressions, while Isa rolled his eyes, Aqua looked doubtful, Angeal placed a hand to his chin, muttering, 'Unbelievable', Riku shook his head with an amused smirk, Mickey thought deeply about this, Myde looked a bit spooked out about the 'ghost', and Genesis lets out a soft exasperated sigh.

Zack then couldn't help but tease at the three members of the crew, "There's a spirit here, huh? Ooooh! Spooky."

"Zack, knock it off." Angeal groaned, shaking his head, while Riku laughed, Isa rolled his eyes again, Cloud smirked, Mickey sighed, Terra smirked himself, Genesis was muttering something about patience, and Aqua gave Zack a scowled look. The others just looked at Zack in annoyance.

Before anyone else could say anything further, another one of the crew members came down in quite a hurry, catching everyone else's attentions as he cried out, "Captain! A ship's been spotted!" and from the sound of things, he sounded terrified as he was fairly young.

"Colours?" The Captain questioned.

"She isn't flying any."

The Captain and the other two turned back to the group, grunting in some sort of realization, "Pirates."

"Or worse." Will muttered, fearing something more than anything else, as he followed the men back up the deck.

"Worse?" Myde muttered, scaredly.

"Let's find out." Genesis suggested. The others nodded in agreement as they followed him up the deck and found all of the crew members scuttering about all over the place while the Captain gazed at the rather sea-formed like ship that was approaching them from the distance. Will had climbed up the Mast and gazed out, while Riku and the others gazed out at the ship, wondering what kind of pirate ship it was. However, they all suddenly felt strong sense of evil from the very vessel.

"Something's very wrong with that ship." Aqua muttered, her eyes narrowing.

"Yeah, it's almost as though...it's a ghost ship." Riku said in agreement.

High on the mast, Will gazed out in horrifized realization. His escape meant that he was being pursued and not only Jack was a target, now Will was a target himself. He called down to everyone else with caution, "It's the Flying Dutchmen!"

"What? The Flying Dutchmen itself!?" Isa exclaimed, shocked beyond belief.

However, before he and the others could question this any further, they and everyone else felt a powerful jerk as the ship somehow hit something and they all nearly fell to the wooden floor of the ship. The jolting stopped as everyone all stood up, wondering what was going on. However, sensing a lifeform from underneath the ship, Genesis felt his heart almost plummet into his stomach, as his eyes widened in shock and somewhat horror. He knew what was to attack. Without a doubt, the crew was going to die. Instantly he felt powerless for the first time in years.

Even Isa somehow knew what it was, as he said to the group, "We must evacuate the ship, now."

"What is it?" Cloud asked, and when he saw the slight fear in Isa's eyes, the blond-haired man felt dread form in his heart. Whatever it was, it was deadly. Possibly not has bad as Chaos or Bhunivelze, it was still bad enough to be dangerously deadly.

"The Kracken." Genesis simply answered for Isa.

"The what?" Zack asked, dumbfounded.

Suddenly he and his friends heard screaming and turned, their eyes widened in sheer horror as a giant tentacle that grabbed the Captain pulled the doomed man back into the water, and one of the now terrified crew members screamed out hysterically, "KRACKEN!"

Everyone started to pull out their weapons, even though Mickey felt his knees saking, and Myde was a quivering mess as the former Nobody froze on the spot, Genesis held out a hand to stop the group, saying, "Fighting this monster will be useless. We cannot do a thing."

"But what about-!" Aqua began to protest, already having summoned her original Keyblade to fight the Tentacles off at least.

"He's right." Isa grunted, as he shut his eyes briefly in guilt. "As legend goes, the Kracken drag an entire ship into the crushing darkness of the ocean, feasting on those on board the vessel. It is the Leviathan of Davy Jones."

"For real?" Riku exclaimed as the ship jerked slightly again, and slowly but surely, rising tentacles of the giant sea monster rose to the railings of the ship.

"Can't we at least warn the crew?" Mickey asked as he and the others began to back away slowly. He'd seen scary things before, but now he was thinking that the Kracken was another scary encounter.

Too late, one foolish member threw a spear at one of the tentacles and the monster roared before going into a raging attack, damaging and destroy the ship, taking away the crew one by one, no matter how hard they or Will or the worldly travellers fought even though Riku and his group did a better job in slicing away parts of the tentacle, they knew, no matter how hard they tried, it was losing battle. So, with their hearts sinking faster than the Kracken crushing the ship and swallowing the doomed crew alive, Riku, Terra, Aqua, Isa, Cloud, Zack, Myde, Mickey, Angeal, Genesis and Will all had no choice but to leap and jump into the ocean to avoid in meeting the same fate.

Mickey ended up last to resurface as when he opened his eyes while under the freezing salt water, he instantly regretted it as his heart froze in horror and dropped into his stomach, catching the sight of the giant octopus that was eating the remaining crew, dragging the ship with ease. Mickey froze, briefly forgetting to resurface as he found himself unable to steer away, as though the Kracken was eating away at his soul. Fortunately, he was saved from drowning when Riku grabbed hold of him and the two resurfaced, coughing up sea water as the two rejoined the rest of their friends and Will, holding onto the blanks of broken wood from the sunken ship.

"What...the hell...was that?" Zack wheezed.

"Giant Octopus." Cloud muttered, breathing hard.

"That's it. I'm believing all sailors stories from now on." Riku panted as he helped Mickey, rubbing his friend's back.

"Thanks, Riku." Mickey muttered, shivering in the coldness of the sea.

"Uh, guys? We're in further trouble." Myde spoke up scaredly as he gazed up at something even more terrifying.

When the rest of the soaking wet group looked up, they saw why as the Flying Dutchmen, terrifying beyond belief approached them. Will turned to the others and nodded, gesturing them to follow him as he dove back into the water. Riku and his group took Will's lead as they did the same, hiding just near the mouth of the ship while avoiding being seen or making any sounds that would get them into trouble. On board the deck, Davy Jones gazed at the ocean where left over dead bodies floating, having died while not having got eaten.

A crew member approached him as he gave out his report, "The boy's not here." mentioning about Will and believing that he has died, "He must have been claimed by the sea."

"I am the sea." Davy Jones reminded coldly. He then turned his gaze to another crew member who was held by other two mutated members. It was Boostrap Bill Turner who helped his son, Will to escape earlier and now was sorrowed in horrified and heartbroken realization that his only son was dead, and knew that it was his own fault. His fault that he failed to prevent Barbossa from plotting a mutiny on Jack Sparrow, failed to be there for Will who was left orphaned and forced to help Jack to retrieve the Black Pearl.

Now Boostrap would never see his son ever again.

"You need time alone with your thoughts." Davy Jones told the sorrowed traitor, before ordering the other crew members to take Boostrap into the Brig.

Unknown to all of them, Will was listening in on the conversation with Riku, Mickey, Terra, Isa, Cloud, Aqua, Zack, Angeal, Genesis, and the shivering Myde who comically shaking in the cold, which was slightly heard. Realising this, the group ducked and hid, while Mickey whispered to Myde, "Myde! Stop shaking!"

"They'll hear us." Riku added.

Getting the picture, Myde held himself tighter and managed to soften his quivering, much to the others' relief. On the other hand, Davy Jones made no notice anyway, as he angrily ordered another crew member, "The chest is no longer safe. Chart a course to Isla Cruces. Get me there first, or there'll be the devil to pay."

"First?" The crew member asked, confused.

"Who sent that thieving charlatan onto my ship? Who told him of the key?" Davy Jones barked, mention about Will, before growing the hateful name, "Jack Sparr'a! He must mean his end before he claims the power of the Keyblade!"

' _Claims the power of the Keyblade? Jack Sparrow? That stupid Captain of the Black Pearl?_ ' Isa thought, finding his earlier suspicions becoming a bit more and more clear. Question was, how would a Pirate like Jack claim the Keyblade?

"Who was the one that bestowed Jack Sparr'a with the power of the Keyblade? Who was it that he met!?" Davy Jones continued, before he spat another name he has learned a while ago, "That boy; Sora!"

Riku's group's eyes all widened in shock, confusion, disbelief and horror. Riku, Mickey, Aqua, Terra, Genesis and Isa all glanced at each in horrified realization. Sora had done something that only caused more trouble than their friend had done. They and the others waited until Davy Jones and his crew were out of earshot, before Mickey muttered, "Oh no! Sora preformed the Keyblade Inheritance Ceremony."

"The Keyblade Inheritance Ceremony?" Cloud asked, puzzled as he, Zack, Angeal, and Myde all held confused expressions, wondering what was going on.

"It's a Ceremony that's fairly easy to do." Aqua began to explain, while still shocked on what Sora, the one who was chosen to save her and the others, had mistakenly done. "A Keyblade wielder hold out their Keyblades to allow their chosen successor to hold. The Keyblade's power flows into the body and when the time is right, the successor will be able to gain the power of their own Keyblade."

"That's how Riku managed to get his." Terra nodded, gazing at the said teen, "Twelve years ago when he was just a young boy, I chose him as my successor."

"And even though Sora wasn't chosen, I guess when him having Ven's heart was another way to allow the Keyblade Inheritance Ceremony to take place." Mickey added, remembering that Sora could still use the Keyblade despite Ven's heart no longer being in his heart. "That's why Sora was able to be the next chosen of the Keyblade."

"But what does that have to do with this Jack Sparrow guy?" Zack asked, shrugging.

Riku groaned as he facepalmed himself, answering, "Sora mentioned a while back that he let Jack hold his Keyblade before it returned to him, while unknowingly preformed the Keyblade Inheritance Ceremony as the two had both touched his Keyblade, even just by one second."

Isa shook his head, concluding, "Which means that Captain Jack Sparrow is Sora's successor when the time is right."

"So that kid ended up choosing a guy older than him as his successor?" Myde blinked, dumbfounded.

"Do I feel sorry for Sora." Cloud groaned, half-sarcastically.

' _Sora, you dummy. You never should've done that_.' Riku groaned to himself in his mind.

Will, also confused on what the group was talking about, told them, "I don't know what any of you are talking about, but I do know one thing. The heart of Davy Jones is on the island where we're going, and I have to retrieve it."

"For what?" Angeal questioned sharply.

Will's expression hardened as he replied, "I'm gonna kill him to free my father."

* * *

Meanwhile, back onboard the Black Pearl, while things were going a little smoothly on the deck despite the sheer boredom some of the group were suffering, especially Donald who was resorted to having to play card games with Goofy to keep his mind off of the fact that they were stuck on a Pirate Ship, and both Xion and Ven were having a nice conversation, talking about the good times with each of their friends, laughing at some funny moments and such, there was some depression on board the vessel.

On one side of the stars leading up the wheel to the right, Elizabeth Swan was depressed. Much that was obvious to everyone else, as she sat on the steps, staring off despondently into nothing. To the left side of the stairs leading up to the wheel, Kairi was in the similiar vote, her elbows resting on her knees, and her chin cupped onto the palms of her hands, as she stared out despondently into nothing. Most of the men steered clear from the two and even from Xion. They had experienced the changeable reactions of women in this mood, and they didn't want to run the risk of getting their heads bitten off.

To make things more awkward, Sora himself was near the front of the ship, staring out to the ocean as the salty sea winds blew against him, but despite the beautiful sight on a nice sunny day, it was anything but sunny in Sora's head. It had been at least 24 hours since the conversation regarding to Maleficent's latest scheme. But that wasn't the main thing on Sora's mind. He hasn't gotten much in a way of sleep and to make matters worse, the ghostly form of Vanitas continued to haunt him no matter what the newest Keyblade Master did, and it made him worry that the former darkness of Ventus was attempting to lure Sora into darkness and he tried hard not to let anyone else know to the point of having them either worried or just thinking that he was going crazy.

It made him feel guilty, however, as Sora knew that his friends suspected that something was wrong, but he just couldn't tell them for fears that they would either worry or think that hwas losing his mind, thus the cycle of worries went back and forth, around and around, time and time again, leaving him with no rest.

Lea and Jack had both tried and failed to get him to talk to them, so the two men turned their attentions to the two depressed women. Lea decided to go over to Elizabeth since he was worried that he would only make things worse for Kairi and he still felt bad for having kidnapped her as Axel. So the redhead went over to the depressed Miss Swann and sat beside her.

"Hey. You look like Santa Claus put a lump of coal in your stocking." Lea greeted and tried to make lighten the mood with a joke. When he didn't get an answer, he sighed while grumbling at the fact that things aren't working out today. "What's wrong?"

Elizabeth, still gazing out at the deck, said wistfully, "I just thought I would be married by now." Her eyes had grown slightly distant, though still aware of Lea's presence. "I'm so ready to be married."

Lea felt sympathy for Elizabeth. He had heard from Sora, Roxas and Xion about the hardships Elizabeth and Will had went through a year ago. It was a harsh blow to be seperated and had their wedding crushed and ruined by some lowlife who had Captain Jack Sparrow on their most hated list. No wonder the woman was depressed.

Uncorking a bottle of water since Lea loathed rum and didn't think that Elizabeth wanted achohol either, he handed the bottle over to the woman. After staring at the bottle only a moment, she took it and had a drink from it.

"You know, Elizabeth, you're the second bride-to-be I've met this month that had a wedding ruined and had to rescheduled, though you had to wait for a while."

"What do you mean by that?"

Lea shrugged with smirk, "A while ago, another friend of Sora's and his girlfriend were about to get married when their wedding was ruined by a gang of Forty Thieves, their leader, immediately, being the father of the groom. Though he didn't know it until, well, it's a long story. But basically, when he went out for answers, the bride had to wait for a little while to get married, like you."

"I guess that explains what you said the other day." Elizabeth muttered, before asking, with slight of hope in her tone, "Did they ever get married?"

"As far as I know, yeah. They're most likely planning their honeymoon by now." Lea answered, before continuing, "But the point is, she was depressed just like you before that happened, as I heard from Xion. In the end, it all worked out. And it'll work out for you and Will too, 'Liz. Trust me, I speak from experience when it comes to separations and not just separations from couples." 'More ways than one.' He silently added to himself.

Elizabeth blinked, before asking, "You were seperated from others two?"

"Definately, more times than I can count, unfortunately." Lea sighed, settling against the railing without falling backwards as he crossed his arms against his chest. "Got forever separated from my parents when I was a kid and never saw them again, but eventually I got over that. Anyway, I also got separated from Rox', Xi' and Isa, and in other cases, from both Namine and Kairi. There was a time I was so sure on giving up my life, especially when I'm the one who cased the separations between me and my friends. At one stage a year ago when I helped out Sora, Donald and Goofy, I nearly died."

Though he was only speaking half the truth on what he was actually saying, as Lea started to feel uncomfortable on revealing parts of his deeds as Axel, but he was trying his best to cheer up Elizabeth. He just hoped that the woman wouldn't question him on his sins.

"How did you survive?" Elizabeth questioned.

"Miracle, sheer luck, or the fact that Roxas gave me strength for a second chance." Lea shrugged. "Either way, I managed to survive and decided to help out in my chance to redeem myself. In the end, it worked out and I was reunited with my friends as Sora and the others were reunited with their friends."

He then edged a little closer to Elizabeth, and concluded, "The point is, just have faith and one day or another, you guys will be together again. I don't know when or how, but it will work out for you."

"Do you really think we will get Will away from Davy Jones so the two of us can get married?" Elizabeth asked, with more hope this time.

"Like I said, just have faith and from what I've seen in your boyfriend, he'll be alright." Lea nodded with warm smile. "I promise. Besides, he kind of reminds me of both Riku and myself, and a little bit of Sora, Roxas and Ven. Too stubborn and tough to go down that easily."

Feeling surprisingly a little better, Elizabeth smiled, muttering, "Thank you, Lea. You're a good man."

This compliment made Lea's face turn a pinkish red that almost matched his hair as he looked away awkwardly, feeling totally embarrassed. Why did such comments from girls always make him feel like he's about to pass out from embarrasment? Sure he redeemed himself and was a good man, but hearing it from Elizabeth was sort of embarrassing, just like when Xion told him that he was kind and sweet.

* * *

Meanwhile, while Lea was cheering up Elizabeth, Jack went over to the depressed Kairi and sat beside her, taking note of the teenaged woman's miserable look.

"My tremendous intuitive sense of the female creature informs me that you are troubled." Jack said.

Kairi's eyes gazed up to Sora near the mast, before admitting, her eyes distant but well aware of Jack's pressence. "Sora won't talk to me. I know something's wrong with him, but he won't tell me what is it that's worrying him so much. He says that he's fine, but he's not. I can see it in his eyes."

Jack quirked an disbelieved eyebrow as Kairi talked. Seeing how Sora had been in a less talkative mood since yesterday, especially since he once mentioned about a bad night's sleep and that he refused to even talk to Kairi or anyone else, despite that Sora was more of a happy-go-lucky young man, noble, heroic, just like Will Turner. No wonder the Princess of Heart was depressed.

"You know..." Jack began, clearing his throat before continuing, "Kairi, I have experience of seeing and knowing a young man and a young woman both admittedly too shy to reveal feelings to one another, and having been experiencing that, I would, in fact, go by, a suggestion. There's plently of hiding places in a ship, and what better place than to avoid in having anyone seeing a couple reveal feelings to one another than right here. You can go up to Sora, convince him to go to anywhere here, for the right opputine moment, to reveal your feelings."

Kairi's eyes widened in shock, before she stood up, storming off to the railing while saying, "It's not like that."

A little shocked at this response, Jack got up and followed her, saying, "Why not? It's perfectly obvious how you and he look at each other, he and you being close. It's in the romantic nature for a young man and a young woman who grew up together from being friends to lovers as they grow into adulthood."

"Not everyone is like that." Kairi replied, though she was fighting hard to hide the blush that was beginning to form, before continuing in a hint of annoyance, "And how do you know about romance anyway?"

"Where do you think Pirates come from? A palm tree?" Jack responded teasingly. "Me parents were both Pirates, and they both fell in love and lo and behold, I happened to come along. Besides the point, you will go over to Sora's side. I know it." he approached her more closerly.

Kairi rolled her eyes, saying, "What makes you say that?"

Jack smiled, as he said in a low, seductive voice, "As I said yesterday, 'luv. Curiosity. You long for freedom; you longed to do what you wanted to do because you want it, to act on selfish impulse. You want to see what it's like. One day, you won't able to resist."

The Pirate Captain leaned back, looking rather pleased with himself. However, Kairi was still skeptical and wasn't willing to give up easily.

"Elizabeth told me that your compass doesn't work. Why's that?" Kairi asked.

Jack's smug look faltered. "My compass works fine." He sputtered, though it wasn't very convincing.

Feeling that she caught him, Kairi continued, "I guess that means you and Sora are a little alike, and that would be further proof if you show us when the chance comes to you; Do the right thing."

"I love those moments." Jack said, trying to regain some control over the game. He walked off a little ways and gestured off to sea. "I like to wave at them as they pass by."

Kairi wasn't about to let him go that easily, even though she was actually starting to feel better despite that she needed to figure out a way to talk to Sora or at least get Sora to talk to her. "You'll have the chance to do something, something courageous and when you do you'll discover something: that you're a good person."

"All evidence to the contrary." Jack retorted.

"Really? Well, from what I've heard about you, you did help out more than once when you first met Sora." Kairi smiled. "And since did help out last year, that tells me that you're a good person. It made it up more for you than any other times, right? You wanna know why?"

"Do tell, dearie."

"Sora's herorics are contagious, in a good way." Kairi continued, shrugging and finding herself feeling her heart beat all of the sudden at the very mention of her childhood friend. "Even as a little boy, he's always been sweet and kind, fun but also a lazy bum. When the two of us and Riku were building a raft to go out on an adventure two years ago, Sora would end up sleeping."

Jack snorted in amusement, "Never thought of him in being lazy, and I've met lazy men in my lifetime."

"Even so, Sora would always see the good in others first before the bad. He's always brave and daring, and well...not once he abandoned anyone. He came to my rescue more times than I count, and not just to rescue me, but rescue anyone else who were in trouble or in danger." Kairi continued.

Jack was a little stunned to hear such truth and stories about the boy with the Keyblade, and if Sora was that heroic without landing himself into more trouble than Will and his bloody honest streak, it's no wonder the Keyblade wielder had so many friends. But then he began to wonder; where there times when Sora actually couldn't save anything and felt guilty? There had to be.

* * *

While the two were talking, Sora sighed as he continued to gaze out at the ocean. He knew he'd have to apologuise and make up to Kairi for not being able to talk to her. Question was, how was he going to be able to do so without sounding like a lunatic?

" _So, ready to go and apologuise to your girlfriend?_ " Vanitas's voice spoke which only Sora could hear.

Sora gazed to his right and found the ghostly form of Ven's darkness stand next to him. The teen looked around and whispered, "She's not my girlfriend. We're just close friends."

" _Are you sure? I see a hint of blush on your cheeks._ "

Trying to hide the said blush though failing miserbly as his cheeks grew a darker pink, Sora muttered again without anyone else hearing him to avoid in sounding like he was totally nuts, and grumbled, "Oh, go away."

That made Vanitas chuckle as though he was enjoying it, mockingly saying, " _Denial is the clincher. You're in love, spiky._ " before singing mockingly in a sing-song tone, " _ **~Sora and Kairi, Sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G~**_ "

"I'm gonna go over the railing and watch four people drown in the ocean, thank you." Sora grumbled as he hopped off the mast and walked over to the said side of the ship, before freezing at he realised what he just said. "Wait, what?"

Rushing over now, Sora's eyes widened in shock as there were indeed four people in the ocean, looking as though they just resurfaced from the water, and were gazing around. Three he recongised, but the fourth person...looked like he had blonde hair. Realising that the people were indeed drowning, Sora knew what he had to do. So he turned and hollared to everyone else, "Men overboard!"

This got their attention as everyone, including Jack and Kairi, looked at where Sora was pointing, and Jack was the first to react, "Men overboard! Bring e'm about, c'mon!"

Everyone sprung into action as despite being Pirates, they weren't the kind of men to leave people drowning in the ocean. It was much of a help from Sora's group as they tossed ropes once the Black Pearl sailed closer to the four people. Eventually as they helped pull the four onto the deck, shivering from the cold sea water and soaking wet, Sora and his friends were surprised not only to see that three of them were actually Roxas, Vincent and Reno, but the fourth person was actually a woman in a uniform that matched Reno's, but much neater. Only Xion and Lea recongised the woman as Elena.

"Roxas?" Sora and Lea muttered, surprised.

"Vincent?" Kairi and Ven muttered, surprised.

"Reno?" Xion, Donald and Goofy added.

"Elena?" Lea concluded, blinking.

Roxas was the first to realise, after the rough ride he, Vincent, Reno and Elena had endured due to the intruder back in Edge of Midgar, where they were now and gave out a weak grin as he shuddered, "H-Hey, guys."

Jack blinked in confusion as while he recongised Roxas though thoroughly astonded how Roxas and Ventus actually did look exactly identical, he was also confused that Sora and the others recongised the other three people, one of them being a woman wearing a man's clothing. Then again, he supposed he shouldn't be surprised due to Elizabeth wearing men's clothing at the moment too. However, he was wary about the man who looked like a vampire and...the redhead that was identical to Lea and looked a little supicious.

"Who're you?" Jack asked to Reno who layed on the deck, groaning and shivering a little.

"That's my line." Reno muttered as he gazed up at the Pirate, before asking, "Where the hell are we?"

"Um, on board the Black Pearl." Goofy answered, simply while shrugging.

"On board where?" Elena asked, shivering while Kairi, Ven and Xion had grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around her to dry her off.

After introducing the four of them to the Pirates and explaining a little bit on where they were going, Roxas and his group had explained to Sora's group on what just happened, about the mysterious intruder with a Keyblade who said something about all of them being disqualified from being Keyblade wielders and how he had sent the four of them to the Caribbean in the first place while careful not to reveal much to the Pirates of the Black Pearl or Elizabeth.

Once that was done, Lea crossed his arms in thought, saying as though he wanted to test his hearing, "So lemme get this straight. Some guy with a new Keyblade was going on about us being the bad guys and that he's the one who is in charge of the worlds. Is that it?"

"I still don't get what he meant by that, but yeah. It was really weird." Roxas nodded.

"Worst part is, he's really insane enough to even think he's in charge to even wanting to arrest us." Reno added as he finished off squeezing water out of his pony tail of his hair.

"None of us were able to defeat him, despite the numbers." Vincent nodded in agreement, gazing at Sora and the others, saying with caution, "If we have to confront him in the future, then be careful. He's powerful."

"Yeah. Though I'm worried on where he came from." Sora thought, before thinking, "Unless he's with Chaos or Bhunivelze."

"Nah, I don't so." Lea shook his head. "The way how he wants to save the worlds, it kind of strikes me that he's more of a crazy rival."

"I think he's right." Elena nodded in agreement with Lea. "Or else why would he say things like he said to us?"

Ven sighed, rubbing the back of his head, muttering, "Well, the only way to find out is to be really careful. I mean, Chaos is bad enough, and going to find the heart of Davy Jones is another crazy thing. But a Keyblade wielder who's against us...I really don't want another Xehanort."

His friends all nodded in agreement on this. While Jack was about to point something out about this discussion, as he held out his left hand to point out the said something, he froze almost instantly. The ugly Black Spot which he had nearly forgotten about in the last few days had come back before his very eyes. His all too brief reprieve was over. Davy Jones was on the hunt again, and this time, he wouldn't be showing any mercy. Another horrifized realization dawned to him. Sora was onboard now, and now the boy and his companions were in the danger of being targeted as well. Jack Sparrow himself just made things worse for the worldly travellers.

The shock of this sudden revelation caused Jack close his hand and keep his mouth shut, though he was failing miserably to hide his dumb horror to even respond what the others were talking about. Thankfully, before the young group(well, not that young in Vincent's case), suddenly there was a call from the lookout in the crow's next high above them. "Land ho!"

Sora and his friends, Jack and Elizabeth all turned south and a great majority of the crew also ran to the side to a look at their destination, a blotch of sandy ground that was rapidly growing larger. The Black Pearl had made it at last. However, while the group went over to see it, Jack was left on his own due to the sight of the island that was sending nervous energy inside his body.

No sooner he'd seen it, Jack knew what he needed.

"My jar of dirt." With that, Captain Jack Sparrow bolted to his cabin to find the said jar Tia Dalma gave him.

Though things weren't really going to go according to plan once they made shore on the island itself. In fact, Sora and everyone else on board wouldn't be alone for long.

* * *

 **A/N: Again, deeply sorry for the long delay for this chapter. To make up for it, for those who played or are playing Unchained X, I'd added Master Aced as an antagonist and Ephemer as a supporting character. See you in the next chapter which I'll try to post as soon as possible.**


	8. Discoveries

**Author's Note: Okay, so I saw both 0.2 and Back Cover on Saturday and well, I actually enjoyed 0.2 better than Back Cover despite not being able to understand Japanese. So this chapter and well, the final chapter of this story will most likely have heavy spoilers which I can only do my best until the english versions come out.**

 **In the meantime, let's continue onward as we're getting closer to the ending.**

 **I still don't own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy.**

* * *

 _ **CH 7: Discoveries.**_

It wasn't long before Sora, Jack, Kairi, Xion, Lea, Roxas, Donald and Goofy were piled in one long boat, and Ven, Vincent, Elena, Reno, Elizabeth, Dulor, Pintel and Ragetti were piled in another since it wasn't much room to fit all of them despite it being a bit of a tight squeeze and Reno had point blank refused to wait on the ship, which Donald agreed full heartedly on that one. Sora and Lea both rowed their long boat, while Pintel and Ragetti were rowing the other, and as usual, the latter two were arguing while doing so.

"You're pullin' too fast." Pintel remarked to his companion.

"You're pullin' too slow." Ragetti remarked in return. "We don't want the Kracken to catch us."

"I'm savin' my strength when it comes." Pintel said iritatedly, before continuing, "An' I don't think it's called the Kracken anyways. I always heard it pronounced as Kraken."

"What? With a long 'a'?"

"Yeah."

"No, no, no. Krocken is how it's pronounced in the original Scandinavian, and kracken is closer to that."

"Well, we ain't original Scandinavians, are we?" Grumbled Pintel, before sticking to his own pronunciation, which, in his opinion, was the only correct way to say the word. _"Kracken."_

Elizabeth and Dulor shared a look, as did Ven and Elena, while Vincent looked unimpressed and Reno was skeptical and confused, so the redhead asked the two idiots that were pirates, "What the hell are you guys talkin' about?"

"You haven' heard about the Kracken?" Ragetti asked in disbelief after he and Pintel paused when Reno had spoken.

"The what now?" Reno blinked.

"Davy Jones' Levaithan." Vincent spoke up, remembering the earlier meeting in Yen Sid's tower. "You remember what Roxas, Lea and teh others had spoken earlier, right?"

Reno thought about it, before his eyes widened and began to glance nervously at the water, muttering, "Oh, right. The oversized man-eating squid. I forgot about that." before gazing at the two Pirates again and said, "Well then, in that case, why don't you guys quit worrying about what to call it and worry more about getting us to shore."

Pintel and Ragetti were intelligent enough to take the message despite the redhead not being a pirate, so with nervous glances at the water, they continued rowing, faster this time.

On the other boat, Donald took notice of the jar of dirt being cradled tightly in the rather nervous Jack's arms and couldn't help but ask in annoyance, "Why do you have a jar of dirt?"

Jack, clinging onto the jar as if he was afraid that it would simply vanish, not to mention that he was a bundle of nerves, was too distracted to give out a long answer, "They expendable."

"Huh?" Donald slumped, dumbfounded.

"Huh?" Goofy blinked, confused.

"Okay...?" Sora muttered as he heard this and decided to ask Lea who had been here with Xion and Roxas earlier later.

* * *

Both boats made it to the shorelines minutes later and Jack, who had tossed his coat into his longboat, had recovered enough to curty an order to Pintel and Ragetti since he knew leaving Sora and the others behind was a bad idea, "Guard the boat, mind the tide, don't touch my dirt."

As the group walked on, Sora quirked an eyebrow at his pirate friend before turning to Lea, asking, "Why does Jack have a jar of dirt anyway?"

"Kind of a long story." Lea shrugged, "Short version; a creepy voodoo lady gave him that to protect him and the crew from the Kracken, or Davy Jones, or both even."

"Why's that?" Elena questioned.

"Because he can't step on land but only once every ten years." Lea replied, "Something to do with his heart being inside the chest, or somethin'."

Goofy, despite being, well, goofy, he was still intelligent enough to understand and said, a little nervously, "Oh, ya' mean Davy Jones is cursed just like Cap'n Barbossa." remembering the cursed treasure that the group had sank into the ocean a year ago.

"I guess that makes sense." Sora thought as they walked into the mainland of the island. But then...why did Jack want the Heart in the first place? Something was up, and he had a feeling that there was more to this venture than Jack had told them for the last few days.

The more Sora and the group ventured into the mainland of the island, the more they began to be aware of it's very strange nature. There was not a sound to be heard, beyond the crashing of the waves against the shoreline. The wind sounded a lonesome and haunting song across the empty land. In all directions, there was no sign of life, either of humans or animals.

As they continued walking along the sandy beach, following the point of the compass that was still holding steady for Elizabeth, they caught sight of the crumbling remnants of a church tower and the scattered gravestones of a cemetery. It was obvious that at some point in the past the island had been the sight of human habitation. That was almost more disturbing than if the island had always been unpeopled and empty.

"Okay, that's just a little beyond creepy." Reno commented at the sight of the ruins.

Ven shrugged, saying, "Oh that's nothing compared to what I've seen. Plus, it's Xehanort and Chaos that scare me."

Roxas nodded in agreement, as he said, "Yeah, even Xehanort's Keyblade takes the cake of being really creepy." before adding as he recalled something, "And though I'm not sure if it was my imagination or not, but I could've sworn that the blue eye on the blade...actually moved."

This made everyone stop and turned to face the young former Nobody with shocked and slightly disturbed expressions, wondering what in Kingdom Hearts was Roxas talking about.

"You mean the creepy eye-design on the Keyblade before Riku and I destroyed it?" Sora asked, blinking in disbelief, before shaking his head and said, "Come on, Roxas. That's the craziest thing I've ever heard. It's already crazy enough that Davy Jones even cut out his heart and put it in a chest while not turning into a Heartless."

"I agree with Sora here, lad." Jack nodded, a little more spooked out but tried to keep it hidden, before cringing in disgust, saying, "Besides, why would anyone put a real eye in that sort of thing and why would it still be moving if eyes don't move on their own without anybody having said eye? Unless, of course, it was a wooden eyeball like Ragetti's."

"Wait, so that demented eye in that guy you hired is actually a wooden eye?" Reno asked, almost flabbergest.

"Ew!" Kairi, Xion and Elena groaned in disgust.

Even Lea shuddered along with everyone else, as he groaned to the Captain of the Black Pearl, "Gee, thanks for putting that image in my head."

"Mine too." Dulor shuddered as well.

"I believe we should get moving, before one of us has placed nightmare upon us all." Vincent suggested, seemingly a little fazed himself.

Deciding that it was the best course of action, the group continued onward and thankfully they were all visibly relieved by the fact that the compass didn't lead them anywhere near the spooky ruins, but towards the dunes of the shoreline a little more than half-a-mile from where they had left the longboats. They were wandering among the dunes, which were little more than big heaps of sand placed in random patterns along the shoreline, and they began to wander about them in such an aimless way, though Kairi began to wonder how the compass really worked all the time.

But, in between two hummocks of sand, something strange began to happen. Elizabeth, who was in the lead suddenly stopped. The compass which had been pointing straight ahead, shifted back in the direction that they had just gone. Elizabeth, confused, tried backtracking a few paces, only to have the compass shift yet again. Elizabeth looked in the direction that the compass was pointing, only to find that she was looking straight at Jack, who gazed ahead before taking notice.

Sora and the rest of the group looked back and forth between Jack and Elizabeth, wondering what the latter was really doing, especially when she shook her head and shook the compass a little, only to have it point in the same direction. She blushed at the implication that this meant. Except, Jack wasn't the thing that she wanted most.

At last, overcome by frustration, Elizabeth plopped down on the sand. "It doesn't work." She flustered, "And it certainly doesn't show you what you want most."

"So we actually-Omph!" Donald began only for Goofy to clamp his bill shut to avoid in letting his annoyance out, as usual.

Sora and his friends looked annoyed as they glanced at each other, while Dulor shook his head. Jack on the other hand, hearing what Elizabeth said, and seeing how the woman had plopped the compass next to her, walked up to her as he saw the needle in the compass shift yet again, this time pointing directly where Elizabeth was sitting. This made him realise that this was what was needed to be done to find what they were after.

He immediately perceived what the compass was trying to say. "Yes, it does. You're sitting on it." Jack told Elizabeth.

The young woman turned her head to look up at Jack, with a puzzled expression, as she asked, "Beg your pardon?"

"Move." Jack said, motioning her to get up from where she was sitting. After Elizabeth did so, Jack then gazed at Dulor and ONLY Dulor, whistling as he pointed at the ground at the spot where he knew the compass was pointing at.

The former No.10, who had been stuck carrying the shovels was now stuck with doing all the digging, mentally growling at the fact that Jack wasn't helping, and by the smug look from Lea, as well as the annoyed looks from Sora, Kairi, Donald, Goofy, Roxas and Xion, not to mention the skeptical looks from Ven, Reno, Vincent and Elena, neither were they. So with an annoyed glance, the Card-Decker dropped one of the shovels and striking the other one into the sandy earth, started digging.

* * *

Minutes passed and the hole only got deeper. Everyone, except for Dulor who was still digging, by now dropped to the ground, with Sora laying flat on the sand, his hands behind his head as he gave out a big yawn of boredom, Lea and Roxas both sitting back to back, having nodded off, with the redhead snoring softly, Ven was chatting with Xion, Kairi and Elena were having a conversation of their own with Elizabeth, Vincent remained silent to his own thoughts, Reno had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves while laying on his back, complaining about the heat, Donald and Goofy were both playing Go-Fish with spare cards the latter had carried with him, and Jack had his legs crossed while doing meditating to kill time.

More minutes passed, and still Dulor kept on digging. This didn't seem to be getting anywhere. However, before anyone could even react to this waste of time...

 _ **CLUNK!**_

The decided sound of a metal shovel striking against an object broke the monotony of the past few minutes. They all heard it and Dulor stopped digging, seemingly staring at something below him. Sora and everyone else immediately stopped what they were doing and stood up(with Reno putting his jacket back on), gathering around the former Nobody and peered into it. Hurriedly Sora, Jack, Lea, and Roxas lifted the box from the ground, though it wasn't what they were looking for, since it was old wood that had seen better days. Despite this, Jack took the shovel from Dulor and with a good thwack onto the aging lock that a Keyblade wasn't needed for it, the lock shattered.

Inside the box was a bunch of letters, dead flowers and necklaces. Kairi took hold of one of the letters and actually opened it, reading through it before furrowing her brows in confusion, muttering, "Who's Calypso?"

"Calypso?" Sora repeated in equal confusion.

"Hang on a minute." Jack thought as he heard this. He gazed back at the and what was actually underneath the letters, "Davy Jones was in love with the Sea Goddess?"

No one said anything about this new revealation. Instead, the Pirate Captain carefully pulled out an iron chest that was covered in carvings of sea life and untouched by weathered hands in such a long time. All of them as much as they could leaned over the chest, listening silently, though not certain what exactly they were listening to.

In the silence, to their disbelief, there was the sound of a steady heart beat from within the chest. This was it; the fabled Dead Man's Chest. Most of the group's eyes widened in disbelief. Donald and Goofy looked rather frightened and quivered, Lea glanced at Roxas in shock, Reno was speech, and Sora muttered in awe, "Whoa... It _is_ real."

Everyone else glanced at each other, stunned beyond belief. It seems all worlds still hold amazing things that not even their inhabits are immune to such wonders. Which, given circumstances, was both a good thing and a bad thing.

"You were telling the truth." Vincent said to Jack.

"I do that quite a lot, yet people are always surprised." Jack replied.

"With good reason." A new voice suddenly pointed out from behind them.

Surprised, they all turned as one to look behind them, only to see the last people they might have expected to see at the moment: It was Will, Riku, Terra, Aqua, Isa, Cloud, Zack, King Mickey, Angeal, Genesis and Myde whom the latter was the most unexpected, and let's just say that Myde was quite shocked and more nervous to the group he was seeing again along with another shocker. Will was admittedly surprised to see that shocker as well, but decided to worry about that later.

Elizabeth's expression instantly melted from surprise into heartfelt relief. "Will!" She ran up and embraced him, "You're all right, thank goodness. I came to find you."

Will seemed no less happy to see Elizabeth, if the embrace he returned and the passionate kiss he gave her was any indication seeing as how the last time they had seen each other, their futures had been uncertain, such relief was hardly a surprise.

The others nearly gathered as Lea and Isa nodded with relived looks and Mickey was once again embraced by Donald and Goofy who were both happy to see their King who was one of their very closest best friends and their brother again. Needless to say, Mickey was happy to see everyone as well, and Terra and Aqua were happily greeting Ven who chuckled.

"Hey, guys! Didn't expect you to be here today." Sora greeted to Riku and the others who nodded, except for Myde whom Sora nodded, before grumbling, "And uh..."

Myde's expression, upon seeing not only Roxas, Xion and Lea again, along with a displeased Dulor, but upon seeing both Ven and Reno, the former No.9 was trying and failing miserably to bring out correct words on the sight before him, pointing a violently shaking finger. Eventually he did blutter out, "T-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-two Axels and two Roxases!? And Xion!?"

"Nice to see you two, Demyx, or whatever your name is now." Lea replied in strong sarcasm, which made Cloud, Vincent, Angeal and Genesis smirk, before he said, "And this is Reno. Long story."

"Still kinda hard to believe that we're both identical." Reno commented.

"And I'm Ventus, but you can call me Ven." Ven added to clear up the confusion.

Getting the picture while still shocked, Myde's attention turned to Sora, Donald and Goofy and flinched uncomfortably, not sure how to react considering that these days were the ones who got rid of him when he was still a Nobody. It was clear that they were still quite annoyed with him, so he tried to lighten the mood and waved friendily, "Hey, you guys look lively as ever."

"Not you too." Sora groaned.

"Yeah, scram!" Donald grumbled.

"Hold on, fellas. Myde came with us since he followed us when we went to retrieve Aqua's Keyblade." Mickey told the two quickly, having already sensed the tension. Despite this, Sora, Donald, Goofy, Roxas and Xion still looked a little uneasy, but since Demyx, or Myde now, was such a whimp and a slacker, he wasn't such a bad guy. Come to think of it, he was one of the most weirdest Nobodies in Organization XIII.

Kairi was the first to notice that the group looked wet, and asked, "You're soaking wet. What happened?"

"Yeah, how did you get here?" Sora added once he and his group also noticed.

Will turned a piercing gaze on Jack. "Sea turtles, mate," he replied to Sora, with biting sarcasm, "A pair of them, strapped to my feet."

"Sea turtles?" Goofy asked, confused.

"Pair of them strapped onto you?" Reno added, skeptically.

Jack, knowing that since Will came back that he was in trouble, gave an uneasy smile, replying nervously, "Not so easy, is it?"

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard." Isa commented, shaking his head.

Lea nodded with his childhood friend in agreement, "You got that right." placing his hands onto his hips. Who really did ride on top of the backs of two sea turtles from one place to another?

Will wasn't about to be pacified. He obviously hadn't forgotten the fact that Jack had betrayed him and he wasn't about to let him forget it. "But, I do owe you thanks, Jack."

"You do?" Jack asked, his uneasy smile, not very strong to begin with, faded altogether, clearly having no idea what Will was talking about. In fact, the others didn't know what he was talking about either.

"After you tricked me onto that ship to square your debt with Jones..."

"What!?" Sora, Kairi, Donald, Goofy, Roxas, Xion, Lea, Ven and Elizabeth all exclaimed, shocked as they turned to Jack in growing astondment and growing anger. Riku and the others in his group were already told of what happened by Will during their venture here in secret on the Flying Dutchmen which, unknowingly to Sora and the others, had dived into the ocean under the cursed Captain's orders.

"What?" Jack unthinkingly mimicked Sora and the others. Reno, Elena, and Vincent all looked equally displeased and quite annoyed with the Pirate's actions.

Will continued while still glaring at Jack, "I was reunited with my father."

"Oh, well, you're welcome, then." Said Jack, trying to make like of the situation, and his role in bringing it about.

Sora, once again hostil towards Jack, stormed up to him, grunting, "You lied to us!"

"Pretty much." Jack admitted, rather awkwardly, even if it was also clear that he had no sense of regret for his actions. "Time and tide, mate."

Despite being furious, Sora just exhaled an exasperating sigh and groaned, "Why am I not surprised?" placing a hand to his face.

"Hey, don't think he's the only one in trouble here, Sora." Riku suddenly spoke up, rather bitterly, causing his friends to all turn, which now he, Aqua, Terra, Isa, and even Mickey gave Sora quite disappointed looks on their faces while Cloud, Zack, Angeal and Genesis decided to stay out of it. Myde, sensing tension rising even further, slinked over towards Dulor, not wanting to suddenly get hurt in what's coming next.

"What?" Sora blinked, now confused. Realising that they staring at him, he asked even more confusion, "What'd I do?"

"Yes, what'd he do?" Jack echoed, once again confused.

"Sora, even though you didn't know at the time, you mistakenly preformed the Keyblade Inheritance Ceremony a year ago and chose your own sucessor." Aqua told him, quite disappointed.

"Keyblade Inheritence Ceremony?" Sora blinked.

"It's a small Ceremony where a Keyblade wielder choose their successors or say, somebody else to give the power of being able to wield the Keyblade by holding out their Keyblade and allowing that person to hold it as well, even just by a few seconds." Mickey explained, "When the time is right, the new wielder will be able to gain the power of their own Keyblade."

Sora was still confused as he placed his hands behind his head, "Okay, so I'd better be careful on that, but I never did-" before cutting himself off when he remembered that he in fact did let someone briefly hold his Keyblade a year ago. Realization hit him hard like a ton of bricks and he groaned.

"I'm rather still confused on this, mates." Jack muttered.

"Ugh! Of all the people I chose and he's standing right next to me!" Sora groaned, holding his head and coming so close in pulling his hair out at his own stupidty. "Of all the stupid things I could've done!"

"Who's standing next to you?" Reno asked, equally confused. "This whole Keyblade thing is still new to me."

"Sora's successor." Cloud simply replied.

"Who?" Jack asked. When everyone else turned to gaze at him, with quite annoyed and frustrated looks, the pirate captain realised that they were looking at him suspicfically, realization dawned onto him now, and quickly remembering that he once briefly held Sora's Keyblade, he pointed at himself, mystified and shocked, "Me?"

"You?" Reno echoed, shocked, eyes wide.

Donald and Goofy, also both remembering, looked at each other before the latter slumped while the former groaned while facepalming himself in frustration, groaning, "Oooh! I can't believe it!"

"I thought you had to find your own Keyblade." Jack muttered, still shocked.

Terra rolled his eyes while explaining, "It doesn't work like that, and, well, despite that, I don't think it'll work this time since one; you're a pirate, two; you kind of screwed up and three; Keyblades are picky for their owners."

"Despite this, Davy Jones knows about this." Genesis spoke up, "Neither of us know how this is possible though we suspect Xehanort might have something to do with it, by gaining your own Keyblade, Captain Sparrow, it will free you from your dept if you do the right thing."

"Eh?" Jack blinked, before muttering, "I find my desire for a blade like that greatly lessen."

"Good! You don't deserve one anyway!" Donald said point blank, crossing his arms while looking away, still annoyed.

Jack's expression faltered, muttering, "That's hurtful, mate."

"You know, if you do the right thing, you might have a fair shot in becoming a Keyblade wielder." Lea couldn't help but compliment, carefully summoning his own Keyblade with slight ease this time, "Sure took me and Isa quite a while to get a hang of summoning our Keyblades. It's all in the snap of the wrist, or whatever you call that movement" before desummoning it.

"Not quite sure I am worthy to have one at the moment." Jack admitted. Before anything else could be said on the matter (which might have been best considering the direction it was going), because at that moment, attention was drawn to the fact that Will had removed, from around his neck, a key that was threaded through a piece of leather string. It took the rest of the group to realise that it was the key to the Dead Man's Chest.

Will was kneeling by the Chest, the key in one hand and a small, but deadly looking knife in the other.

"Will?" Goofy asked, suddenly getting an uneasy feeling.

"Oi, what're you doing?" Jack asked.

"I'm gonna kill Jones." Will answered, not stopping.

"You're gonna kill Davy Jones." Reno repeated, also getting the same bad feeling as Goofy was feeling. "Why am I feeling that there's more to this than just a stab in the icky heart?"

Before anyone else could answer, Jack had suddenly drawn his sword and had it pointed it straight at Will's throat. When he spoke, his voice had become low and dangerous. "Can't let you do that, William. Even if I have my own Keyblade which is unlikely, with Jones dead, who's to call his terrible beastie off the hunt, eh?"

Everyone else were shocked by this movement. They didn't think Jack would do that, but on the other hand, some of them began to realise that the Kracken was the summoning of Davy Jones to hunt those who made a debt with him and Jack was the latest target unless he gains his Keyblade.

"So wait, you'd want to use the Heart to force the guy to call off the Kracken and then kill him?" Lea asked, quickly realising what Jack's plot was. It made sort of sense. If Davy Jones died now, the Kracken would roam free and no one was safe. They would be floating meals for the Kracken for goodness knows how long. On the other hand, who's to say that even with Jones dead after the hunt was called off, wouldn't the Kracken still be free?

Will looked from the point of Jack's sword, to Jack himself. He seemed to get the point that Jack was trying to make. He drew back from the Chest, got to his feet, steathing his knife.

"Now, if you please," Jack continued, holding a hand out for the key to the Dead Man's Chest. "The Key..."

Instead of doing so, however, Will then moved quicker than lightning to draw Elizabeth's sword(since Will stupidly didn't have one himself), and pointed it at Jack, alarming the group again. "I keep the promises I make, Jack. I intend to free my father. I hope you here to see it."

"Hey, whoa. This isn't helping matters." Zack tried to intervene, but Jack and Will both ignored him.

"He's right. The best salution is to wait and speak with Davy Jones himself on this matter." Angeal agreed as he approached the two men, turning to Will, "I suggest that you calm down and think before you act too rashly like you are right now. I know you want to keep your promise, but you don't know the results of what will happen once Davy Jones is dead."

He then turned to Jack and continued, "As for you, even if you do force him to call off the hunt, it will still be alive even if he dies, and who's to say that he won't turn against you even if you use his heart by threatening it."

"You took the words right out of my mouth, because I was just about to say the same thing." Lea spoke up to Angeal, a little awkwardly.

At that moment, Dulor pulled out his own sword in one hand and pointed it at Angeal's neck in one hand, and his deck of cards in another, saying coldly, "I'm afraid I cannot let either of you hold the chest. My apologises."

"Luxord?" Myde muttered scaredly, backing away now from the former No.10.

Instantly, everyone else glared at Dulor in realization, as Lea growled softly, "Dulor, you snake...!"

"Let's just say it's all part of my revenge against every single one of you and those who are allies to you all, Axel." Dulor grinned evilly, his voice harsh and biting. "I've decided to join Maleficent, because domination sounds rather tempting, in a way to get rid of you all easily." He had been waiting for his opportune moment ever since they had arrived. Now that it was in sight, he had no intention of letting anything stand in his way, even if the odds seemed against him.

Jack, as though not surprised, said with a sardonic smile, "Ah, the dark side of ambition."

"You haven't changed a bit." Sora growled at Dulor, quickly summoning his Keyblade, as did Riku, Terra, and even Lea and Isa both summoned their weapons, and Cloud, Zack, Angeal and Genesis all unsteathed their swords to fight just in case. Even Vincent pulled out his gun Cerberus and aimed it at Dulor who's grin only grew.

"Wait, this isn't the right thing to do!" Mickey protested, with Aqua, Ven, Kairi, Roxas, Xion, Donald and Goofy nodding in agreement. Reno and Elena both glanced at each other, wondering if they should intervene or not.

"Can I say something?" Myde pipped up hopefully.

"NO!" Everyone else all snapped in unison at Myde who flinched scaredly with a squeak.

"And this is why without leadership that all you do is fight." A new voice spoke up, causing everyone to gaze to their left, as Aced approached with his own Keyblade in hand. Only Sora, Kairi, Lea, Jack, Dulor, Ven, Xion, Elizabeth, Donald and Goofy didn't recongise him, but the rest of the group did as they glared at him.

"You!" Reno growled, glaring hard and dangerously at the man.

"You! What are you doing here?" Cloud demanded, ready to fight Aced if needed.

Aced glared at the group, saying, "You should leave everything to me. The worlds need leadership. Neither of you are suited for it, nor are you all suited to be wielders of the Keyblade."

"What? How do you know about the Keyblade?" Ven demanded.

"Yeah, who're you?" Sora added.

The man stood there in silence, before summoning his Keyblade, answering, "I am Master Aced. Foreteller of six apprentinces and the first Keyblade War. Now I'm going to erase the remaining threat. Neither of you are qualified to do so."

"Master Aced...You're the master Shelke and Shalua told us about!" Roxas hissed, summoning his Keyblade now as well.

Instead of commenting on this, Aced readied his Keyblade, muttering to himself, "May my heart be my guiding key." before launching himself at the group.

Thankfully Genesis took action first and blocked the attack with his sword, which the first instantly started when Dulor attacked Angeal, Will attacked Jack and soon despite the numbers, Dulor and Aced both took on the group since it was somewhat a self battle, though Sora, Lea, Isa, Cloud, Zack, Angeal, Genesis, and Roxas tried to a stop to it by fighting both two enemies and put sense into two of their friends, all of them locked in a massive fight, three for the key and others to stop them and Aced. In the blink of an eye, they had gone from standing over the Chest, to moving further inland.

"Stop it!" Aqua shouted as she and the rest of the group, including Myde, ran after them to try and get all of the fighters to stop fighting.

Genesis locked his sword with Aced's Keyblade, before being knocked back by the rouge Keyblade Master who then clashed harshly with Angeal's sword, avoiding Cloud's fusion sword that appeared to slice him in half. Aced summoned a barrier with a free hand which held Cloud's attack back. Roxas expertly tossed his Keyblade at Aced who knocked away Angeal and Cloud before blocking Roxas's Keyblade with his own and knocked it back. Though Roxas managed to catch his Keyblade, he was knocked down by Aced, before rolling out of the way.

Lea cried out his friend's name before quickly slicing one of Dulor's overgrown cards that attempted to swallow him up into the card realm into pieces and then flared up his fire ability at his former comrade of the Organization, "Burn, baby!" which knocked Dulor back before he clashed swords with Will and Jack. Isa slashed more decks of cards into oblivion with his weapon before launching himself to knock him back only to be knocked back himself.

Sora ended up clashing against Jack with Keyblade against sword despite the two of them being friends but at the moment, the former was really trying to get him to his senses. The young Keyblade Master leaped back and changed targets when Riku was now clashing Keyblades with Aced by using Blizzard which briefly froze the enemy's left arm. None the less, Sora and Riku both clashed against Aced who was really powerful. Terra quickly joined in with Zack as the two knocked Aced back but the four of them had to block Aced's next attack.

Dulor was locking swords with Will, when Jack snitched the key and dashed off with it. Dulor gave Will a swift kick in the stomach, forcing him to collapse on a heap on the sand. Elizabeth and the rest of the group who weren't fighting ran up to him as she cried out her lover's name worriedly.

But she needn't have bothered. "Guard the Chest." Was his short request, before leaping to his feet and charging after the other combatants.

Mickey and the rest of the group had finally witnessed enough. "No!" cried Elizabeth, as she and the others ran after their friends and the two enemies.

"STOP THIS INSTANT!" Mickey shouted, finally losing his temper that he kept in check for most of his life and he finally understood why Donald was always short tempered. It felt good to let it out once and a while. Still, his command was ignored.

"Stop! Fighting like this will only make things-" Kairi shouted, only to realise that it wasn't working. Sora, Riku, Lea, Isa, Terra, Cloud, Zack, Angeal, Genesis, Roxas, Jack, Will, Dulor, and Aced were too caught up in typical male posturing to listen to any sort of sense. By this time the rest of the group, save for Reno and Myde who both decided to keep their mouths shut to save their dignity and their lives, and even Mickey, Donald and Goofy stayed out of it, had worked themselves into fine tempers. Whether or not what they said actually made any difference to the situation really didn't matter at this point; keeping silent at this point was impossible. So, almost at the exact same time, they shouted.

"Guys, please! Stop it right now!" Ven shouted.

"I can't believe you boys are behaving like spoiled children!" Kairi shouted.

"Fighting like this is pointless and all you of know it!" Xion shouted.

"I thought every single one of you were better than this, but you're worse than children, fighting over things that probably won't make a difference!" Aqua shouted.

"If it weren't for us women, all life would've died out thanks to jerks like every single one of you, both old and young!" Even Elena was shouting.

"Oh, fine, let's just start pulling out our swords, Keyblades or whatever and start banging away at each other. That will solve everything!" Elizabeth shouted.

Their calls went unheeded, the men simply continued fighting, as if nothing in the world was suddenly more important than running around in circles waving sharp objects at each other, risking the chance of impaling each other, all for the sake of one little key...well, at least Sora, Riku, Lea, Isa and Zack were trying to get sense through their friends as well as stopping Dulor and Aced.

Elizabeth has had enough. Completely fed up and angered at this unexpected turn of events, she screamed out angrily, "I've had it! I've had it with wobbly-legged, rum-soaked pirates!"

Even Ven, Aqua, Kairi, Xion and Elena who were all equally irriated as Elizabeth, stopped short and stared at her in shock while Donald, Goofy, Reno, even Mickey and especially Myde were now quite scared of the woman as they shrunk back a little in fear, too afraid of what Elizabeth could do to them.

Elizabeth, not content with merely screaming her discontent, picked up rocks and started flinging them at the fighting group. Unfortunately, they landed rather short of the intended target, which did nothing to improve her temper. Even Mickey and the others who aren't fighting just glanced at each other, some with concern, some with worry, and Myde looked about ready to pass out from the fear of the group before him.

Unknown to everyone in this situation, Pintel and Ragetti came running up as they watched the scene before them, confused and puzzled. "'Ow'd this go all screwy?" Pintel asked after a moment of silence.

"Well," said Ragetti, eagerly filling his friend in on all the detailed particulars, "Each wants the Chest for his-self, don't 'e? 'Cept for Sora and 'is friends who are fighting to protect the worlds from Aced who brought 'em together to take over everythin', Dulor, I think 'e wants to join Maleficent for 'evenge, ole Jack's lookin' to save 'is own skin 'ispite of bein' chosen by that kid, and Turner, I think 'e's tryin' to solve some unfinished business between 'im and 'is twice-cursed pirate father."

While Ragetti seemed rather pleased with himself at this explanation as he crossed his arms in a proud manner, Pintel still wasn't entirely sure what was going on. "Sad." He commented.

A moment of silence, as they watched the scene with the shouts coming from Elizabeth, than Pintel glancing toward the now forgotten and unguarded the Dead Man's Chest, said, in a greedy half-whisper. "That Chest must be worth more than a shiny penny."

Ragetti shook his head while clicking his tongue, saying, "Terrible temptation."

"If we was any kind o' decent, we would remove temptation from their path."

Finally getting what Pintel saying, the two pirates grinned, and like two naughty children, chuckled as they snuck away to grab hold of the Chest.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth, who along with the others with her, hadn't heard the plot behind them and only focused on the fighting in front of them, as she gave up throwing rocks at them, screaming out, "ENOUGH!"

Nothing. Desperate by this time, she tried the old standby.

"Oh! Ohh, the heat." She cried melodramatically and collapsed on the sand.

"Are you okay, Elizabeth?" Goofy asked worriedly as he and Myde both quickly crouched to help.

"She's faking it." Reno sighed, holding a hand to his face, feeling a headache coming on.

Elizabeth waited a few seconds, then opened one of her eyes. The fighting group were still fighting as intensely as ever. Not even Will bothered so much as to throw a glance in their direction. In sheer annoyance, she sat up and began to sulk.

"Even if it did work, they ain't gonna help out since we're here." Reno pointed out.

"There has to be something we could do to stop them!" Xion cried out, worriedly and in frustration.

"But how?" Donald asked, shrugging.

Mickey sighed, muttering, "Well, I guess the only thing we can do is to wait and guard the chest. Besides, Davy Jones' crew could be on their way to steal it right behind us." unaware at first that Pintel and Ragetti were running away into the jungle, carrying the Chest between them.

Myde was the first to notice though, as he said, wincing, "Too late. The Chest's already being taken away." pointing at the direction were the two pirates had taken off.

When Mickey and the others noticed this, now they were caught between going after the chest and also to go and stop the fight. Realising that this was a situation where two groups were needed to both stop Dulor and Aced as well as protect the Chest, Mickey, Aqua, Ven, Xion, Kairi, Donald, Goofy, Myde, Reno and Elena reluctantedly came to a silent agreement and nodded before the group dashed off after Pintel and Ragetti.

The chase and the fight was on...but things were about to get a little bit more nasty in the events yet to come for our heroes and their allies.

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry that this chapter was a bit shorter, but I wanted the fight scenes to be long, so they'll be in the next chapter as we're coming up to the ending. See you in the next chapter! And yes, for those who had managed to catch glimpse of the early english release of Back Cover before it was taken down from Youtube, I bet you can recongise what Aced had said and about Xehanort's Keyblade.**


	9. Battles of Shock

**Author's Note: For those of you who haven't seen the scene from Unchained X or have seen or heard of it's update "Union X(Cross)", this chapter will reveal more spoilers that'll put you into major shock.**

 **I still don't own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy.**

 _ **CH 8: Battles of Shock.**_

* * *

Sora, Riku, Roxas, Lea, Isa, Cloud, Zack, Vincent, Angeal, Genesis, Jack, Will, Dulor and Aced were in the thick of the fight. When not viewed for the reason which they were fighting in the first place, it was nothing short of an amazing sight. All thirteen men, three of them just being teenagers, most of them being in their twenties, two who were previous dead but were brought back to life, two who'd been alive longer than they should have yet have not changed their appearences, and one who is now revenge-mad, all of them having different fight styles with one of them being the former Nobody of another, thrown together in a setting that would challenge them in ways that they had never before experienced.

In the minds of Sora, Riku, Lea, Isa and Zack, they wanted this fight to stop and getting sense into the others. In the minds of Roxas, Cloud, Angeal and Genesis, there was very little choice and bend on finishing off both Aced and Dulor. In the minds of Jack, Will and Dulor, winning was their goal in order to claim the Key. And in the mind of Aced, domination and leadership, power mad set course through his vains and his heart. Swords, Keyblades, Chakrams and Claymore all flashed over by the sunlight as the weapons were clashed, some of them casting magic and dangerous powers would cause some damage.

Though both the Key and stopping both Dulor and Aced were on everyone else's minds.

Sora leaped into air and clashed against Aced's powerful thrusts and clashes before being forced to the beach once more, in which Riku and Cloud both took over in thrusting the mad Keyblade wielder to the ground before he landed on his knees. But he then thrusted out his Keyblade in the air, creating a powerful cross of light, sending it forward towards the trio. Fortunately, Cloud, with the power of Materia from Midgar, fused his sword in blue light before he thrusted it onto the ground, sending a wave of upper-cut that was met with Aced's power, both attacks exploding slighty before vanishing into dust of sand and water.

Vincent fired shots from his gun, Cerberus, at Dulor who either blocked the gunshots or rolled out of the way to dodge them, before the former Turk easily jumped out of the way to avoid the former Nobody's Cards which were sliced into oblivion by Zack who then blocked Will's sword, swordsman vs swordsman. Dulor then thrusted out like fifty cards all around the area around everyone in an attempt to capture them. Fortunately, Genesis and Angeal both leaped up and thrusted Fire Spells at 25 cards before slicing up ten more into oblivion. Lea tossed his Chakrams duely that sliced through the rest of the cards with ease and the said weapons continued to fly around knocked Jack down, causing him to drop the key he managed to grab from Dulor about two minutes ago.

Isa saw his chance to grab the key and toss it into the air as he had enough of it, before being forced to leap out of the way as Aced then changed targets, but was still knocked back onto the sand and water where he landed with a crash, causing Lea to cry out his name, before he caught his weapons and then tossed them again at Aced who blocked it, knocking them back. Lea caught the Chakrams with ease and was about to be knocked back as well had Roxas not toss his Keyblade at Aced's head, knocking him down as well, but the crazed Keyblade wielder managed to recover from this attack.

Will then saw his chance as he found the key on the sand and picked it up before anyone else could get the chance to grab hold of it and he tried to make off for it.

"Bugger!" Jack cursed before getting up and once again clashed with both Will and Dulor, and then with Sora and Riku who both tried to get the three of them to stop, three swords and two Keyblades clashing with series of clings and bangs and sometimes punches and kicks that echoed into the air, while at the same time, Cloud, Zack, Lea, Isa, Roxas, Angeal, Genesis and Vincent all attempted to block Aced's powerful and surprisingly fast thrusts from his Keyblade that was starting to wear all of them down, but none of them refused to give up.

Aced then leaped up in the air and then unleashed a powerful shockwave that send everyone on the beach to fall onto the ground while he landed safely. However, Jack, seeing the key having fallen out of Will's hand, quickly picked it up before hurriedly climbed to his feet and narrowly avoided Will's sword while running away towards the jungle towards the deserted building and graveyard, while everyone else quickly stood up, half preparing to chase Jack, half to stop Aced, only for Dulor to grab hold of Lea and Isa's hoods of their coats and pulled them back, shoving them into the rest of their friends except for Angeal and Genesis who both then took on Aced alone as the trio ended up going into another direction.

Dulor then kicked sand at the group who had to shield their eyes, then mocked a bow, "By your lead, gentlemen." before taking off to get the key from Jack.

As the rest of the group were recovering and then immediately went to go after Aced, Dulor, Angeal, Genesis and Jack, Lea couldn't help but comment, "I think I liked Dulor better when he would do nothing but play poker or go fish!"

* * *

Meanwhile, down at the beach near where Sora and his friends had found the chest, another problem was raising from the tides and shores of the ocean's water as the Flying Dutchmen had arrived to claim it's prize. The undead cursed crew that had mutated into monsterous sea life, wielding strange alien-like weapons that was possibly even beyond the Realm of Light, made to kill without mercy. The crew clambered up from the sea and up the beach. They made it to the hole that had been dug some time before, and the open, empty wooden box beside it. They paused, gazing in disbelief and wondering and muttering unintelligible amongst themselves as to where the Chest could be. Obviously, they had gotten there too late, and though they were all beyond the normal sphere of emotions as their hearts were beyond even the darkness, they were not yet incapable of feeling the terror that the disapproving rage that would no doubt give them severe punishment.

 _BONG! BONG! BONG!_

Just by one bong, the mutated crew gazed up and as in the distance in the abandoned ruins of the church, it took them only a moment to realise that they were not alone and the ones who were responsible for taking their master's Chest were no doubt in the jungle or at the ruins. Either way, at least they could get the chance of not only taking the chest, but also slicing off the heads of pitiful mortals which saved them from Davy Jones' wrath. Letting loose chilling and monsterous yells, the entire crew charged forward, fully intent on recovering the stolen property that had been stolen from their master, and dolling out the proper punishment to the thieves.

* * *

Angeal's sword and Aced's Keyblade were met in a heavy clang with sparks flying while the said two were hovering in the air before leaping down to the ground once more, Aced having twirled to land safely. He then casted Barrier to block Genesis' fire Materia spell and expertly blocked the said man's crimson sword, thrusting him and Angeal back with a mighty swing from the Keyblade. Genesis and Angeal summoned their wings to righten their position and glared down at Aced who glared back up at them.

"The darkness has taken a heavy toll on your hearts, as well as the hearts of those who are with you." Aced growled. "The worlds shouldn't remain this way! I have to fix it, and restore it to it's former glory!"

"What you're attempting to do will only make things worse." Angeal warned with a frown. "Xehanort made the mistake in attempting to recreate a war that caused this to happen in the first place!"

"Had it not been for Sora or his friends, the Realm of Light would've been lost to Xehanort." Genesis added in agreement.

"ENOUGH!" Aced roared and leaped up and attempted to deliver heavy blows against the said two, which, given how this fight was proving to be far too dangerous even for the Caribbean, both Angeal and Genesis grunted before they glanced at each other and gave each other a firm nod of agreement.

The trio then leaped further into the forest as the two old friends then held up their left hands which was starting to form a massive spell of light just as Sora, Riku, Roxas, Cloud, Zack, Lea, Isa, Terra, and Vincent arrived while Will chased after Dulor who unfortunately knocked him back, though this gave Jack a better chance in escaping for a short time. The rest of the group, their minds off Jack and Dulor at the moment, gazed up in shock and horror as the light was covering up Aced, Angeal and Genesis as the latter two gazed down at them.

"What are you doing!?" Sora cried out, realising along with the rest of his friends that the trio above were clashing heavily while starting to disappear.

"Giving you a chance to set things right, and holding off this madman as much as we can!" Genesis replied.

"But-!" Sora started.

"You can do this. Trust me!" Angeal said, encouragingly. "Sora...the rest is up to you now!"

"Angeal! Wait! Stop! Come back!" Zack cried out in dismay. He couldn't lose his best friend. Not again. Not just when he got him back and had come back to life and had set things right by finishing off Xehanort and now was needed to defeat Chaos and if they had to, Bhunivelze.

"What're you guys, crazy!?" Lea demanded in shock.

"There's nothing we can do." Vincent told the others, firmly understanding despite wanting to go after Angeal, Genesis and Aced as well.

Vincent was right. Plus, as he had been attempting to make a move, he stopped short as he sensed they were going to have unpleasent company, and just one second after he finished his sentence, morphing out of the ground and appearing from the darkness while surrounding most of the group and Will, Heartless appeared and encircled around Sora and the others who became alarmed before holding tight grips on their weapons. Sora, Cloud, Roxas and Zack gazed up as with a final clash of a broadsword, crimson sword and Keyblade, the clash was so heavy as the light engulfed Aced, Angeal and Genesis that they and the others were forced to shield their eyes as the light brightened the area before fading. When they looked again, to their shock, the fighting trio were nowhere to be found.

"Where did they go?" Will asked as he had arrived and found that Angeal, Genesis and Aced were missing.

"Will, behind you!" Riku cried out before leaping over the former Blacksmith and cleaved a rather new looking watery jelly-fish Heartless into oblivion before landing beside him, the two then standing back to back.

"Ugh, back off!" Sora grunted as he then shielded himself with his Keyblade when one of the Shadow-Heartless attempted to scratch him with it's claws, before he knocked it back and thrusted his weapon down at it and clashed and slashed at other Heartless, with most of his friends following his lead.

Zack ended up knocked away from the others who cried out to him but couldn't reach him as they were too busy handling the Heartless problem. As the swordsman gazed up, he saw both Jack and Dulor race into the ruins of the Church before feeling conflicted on whether to go after them or not. He didn't want to abandon his friends, but he didn't want Jack to do anything stupid with the Chest or Dulor to deliever Davy's heart to Maleficent.

His dilemma was solved as Cloud, also noticing, shouted to him, "GO! We'll fine!" as he side-cleaved a trumpet-wielding Heartless in half with his Fusion Swords and going after another in attempt to clear the way out of this mess, while Vincent shot another one through the head before reclipping his pistol while grunting at the fact that he was running low on ammo.

Sora and Roxas both tossed their Keyblade in a double boomarang move which was added by Lea's Chakrams which were now covered in flames under his command as the redhead had tossed them like frisbees that caught the Heartless off-guard, while Isa swiped at a much larger Heartless, a massive gust of winds sending them flying, giving Riku and Will the chance to cleave at them despite the latter not being skilled in the same kind of mastership as the worldly travellers but he still managed.

Finally, Zack knew that Cloud was right and silently promising himself to help his friends when he could, took off running to try and catch up to Jack and Dulor despite not being that fast of a runner. If he could get the Key, maybe he then keep it out of sight and try and figure out with the others on what to do with the dumb thing since they had to find a way to how to remove Jack from Davy Jones' curse as well as prevent the said latter from being used by Maleficent which would spell disaster.

* * *

While that was going on, Jack continued to run and even managed to cleave away Heartless that appeared and ran into the church, climbing up the stairs that seemed to still be in good condition consider. However, Dulor managed to catch up and attempted to stab Jack with his own cutlass. But the Pirate Captain managed to see this and blocked Dulor's movements, kicking the latter in the stomach to stumble back. On the old wooden platform the higher up they went to the ceiling that wasn't much left anyway, Jack attempted to run again, but fell forward onto the platform when Dulor caught him by his left ankle and pulled him off his feet.

The two then got up and were met in a struggle, Jack's left wrist caught in the tight grasp and the said Pirate was forced back into the corner. Dulor then saw the Key dangling from his enemy's grasp and to Jack's dismay, grabbed it from his grasp which had weakened due to his wrist having been caught. Despite this, the pirate was able to free himself and attempted to slice off the former Nobody's head, but the latter had ducked, causing Jack's sword to collide with the withered bricks that were still strong.

Dulor then moved behind Jack and shoved him off the platform to the ground below which, given their current position, was a good 100 feet up that would cause damage.

"WAAGH!" Jack screamed as he fell, while he automatically grabbed one of the ropes that was still attached to the old church bell, and as he fell while hanging on, his weight had caught the bell to bong severel times(also triggering this knowlage to Davy Jones' crew).

This was helpful to Zack however, as when he just arrived, an idea perked up in his head and held onto another rope that was attached to the bell, using this to his advantage to get the key. Zack held on tight and felt himself being lifted up, passing Jack who continued to scream as he fell, the younger man teasingly saying, "Elevator goin' up!" while thankful that Jack was too busy to hear this.

Zack then grasped the key from the rather shocked Dulor's grasp and swung himself onto a higher platform, now at the very top of the ceiling and grinned, mocking at the former Nobody, "By your lead, Dulor!" before making a run for it to try and keep the key from the two and hoped to get Dulor and Jack to come to their senses.

Unfortunately, Zack was stuck when he had to stop himself from falling off from the edge of the roof. But had to draw his sword and clashed against Dulor who attempted to either capture him with his cards or slice him into bits. Zack counterattacked by slicing the cards into oblivion and blocked Dulor's sword. The two men fighting while going over to the lower roof of the building which ended at an old water mill that had seen better days and continued to futilely beat each other, neither of them giving up. Jack in the meantime, having recovered and was making his way back up, managed to find them and as silently as he could, followed them so that he could silently grab the key without being noticed. Being good with his balance while walking carefully acrossing a wooden plank from the bell room's roof to the other roof, he now stood behind Dulor who was too busy to notice. Jack had to carefully avoid in getting his hand chopped off and trying to get the key.

While Jack had finally managed to get the key, unfortunately he hadn't been very careful as Dulor noticed that his hand was lighter due to the lack of the said key and turned around in shock which also caught Zack's attention when he earlier had lost the key. Startled, Jack then had to clash against both of the other men, but unfortunately, his cutlass was swiped out of his grasp and onto the ground in the grass below, stuck with two swords pointed threatenly at him.

"Do excuse me while I kill the man who made my life more miserable." Dulor growled at Zack with murder, death, kill in his eyes.

"Not in a million years. All I wanna do is knock his head into a coma for a week and knock sense into him." Zack growled back, which, given circumstances, he would happily put Jack into a coma for a week, no more than that. Despite Jack being a pirate, he was Sora's friend, and Zack wouldn't forgive himself if Jack was killed.

"Let us examine that fate former Organizer, shall we?" Said Jack, always had some quick, clever response for getting out of trouble. "Who was it, when, at the very moment you had come so close in retrieving your heart with the aid of a Keybearer who joined sides with a notorious pirate, thought fit to help said pirate on his own revenge and unexpectedly helped to save the world from a leader who caused more problems to many others than pirates would. Aye?"

Both Dulor and Zack had no idea on the mumbled words Jack was saying, though the former was considering his thoughts on the situation. This was what Jack had been aiming for. "So whose fault is it really that you've ended up getting your heart back only to end up a rum-pot deckhand what takes orders from pirates?"

"ENOUGH!" Dulor roared, attempting to kill Jack with a furious swing of his sword

Luckily for Jack, he managed to duck and lean to his right and slid down, but he used this to roll and then leap from the roof like an acrobat and then landed safely onto the ground with a rough skid, but the grass and years of moss had cosined his landing, and to add to his luck, he landed next to his cutlass where it had landed.

"Unfortunately..." Dulor began after he and Zack had watched Jack land, "Even though he's right...Xemnas is dead...so I have no choice...but to take my anger out on YOU!" With a roar, Dulor turned and attempted to kill Zack who blocked his attacks and once again the two were clashing their swords, though this time, in Zack's case, it was a matter of survival and Dulor's case, a blind fit of rage that was seeping darkness into his restored heart.

Standing up and not wanting to get involved in anymore fights, Jack put away his sword as he called up to Zack, "I'm rooting for you, lad!" before running to escape again.

Once Jack was in a safer distance, he slowed his run into a confident walk while drapping the string attached to the key around his neck to head back to the beach...and didn't pay attention to where he was going, as his foot was met with air below him in a hole, causing him to stumble, "Whoa-!" and fall into the not so steep hole below with a thud, "- _Omph_!"

Really, it was a burial hole for whoever's grave would've been, but was never completed and was left open for several years. Jack sat up from within the hole and briefly wondered how this happened, before realizing it was his clumsiness that caused this, and muttered a deadpanned, "Oh."

Luckily that he didn't come out just yet, because Sora, Riku, Roxas, Will, Cloud, Lea, Isa and Vincent came parralling through the trees while continuing to fight off the Heartless, unknowingly leaping over the hole were Jack was currently 'hiding'. Sora, Riku and Roxas then leaped into the air and preformed a rather comiedic slashes and karate chops with their Keyblades at flying gothic-like Heartless who stood no chance against two young Keyblade Masters and a former Nobody of one of them, though Roxas was doing a faster job at it, having done the similiar thing in Neverland a year ago during a mission with Axel, only without pixie dust.

Sora twirled his Keyblade at another Heartless after landing on the ground before deciding that it was by time to use a little bit of an extra boost, calling upon his powers from his clothes and turned into his valor form, turning his clothes completely red and summoning a spare Keyblade since, despite no longer having Ven's heart within his own heart and that both Roxas and Xion are capable of sharing their Keyblades, Sora could still double-wield. The Keyblade in his left hand was rather a new one, which he took notice briefly; It was very similiar to his Kingdom Key, but the teeth of this new one was shaped like a star with a star-shaped hole in it, the hilt around the inner hilt was a night-sky blue and the same was said for the keychain instead of the 'Hidden Mickey'. Deciding to worry about this later, Sora then focused on double-clashing against a double-sword-wielding Heartless, fighting it almost equally until he used some of the powers he learned from the Realm of Sleep and sent the Heartless into oblivion.

Will slashed and stabbed the Heartless with Elizabeth's sword before rolling out of the way to continue to do this, becoming frustrated since he was no-where in reaching Jack or Dulor for the Key, and he really wanted to keep to his promise to free his father by killing Davy Jones, too stubborn to even pay heed of Angeal's words from earlier.

Lea and Vincent both chanted Firaga in which the latter used to his advantage in actually going through it and surprising five more Heartless before firing ranges at them, oblierating them while the former then decided to give his Keyblade a shot for a change to keep in practice as a new Keyblade wielder. He rolled out of the way while remembering as quickly as he could in summoning it. ' _Snap of the wrist._ ' He reminded himself.

Successful this time, Lea then slashed at one Heartless before leaping out of the way and cleaved another, before finding himself struggling to the point of summoning one of his Chakrams to make this easier, fighting the Heartless with his Keyblade(Fire-Emblem, he decided to call it) in his right hand, and one of his Chakrams, the Eternal Flame, in his left hand. But it was still awkward as he cleaved and sliced the Heartless. "Man, Rox' and the others make wielding and fighting with the Keyblade look easy!" He admitted as he fought.

Cloud, Isa and Riku in the meantime ended up joining forces with three of the bulky Heartless that was causing them no ends of trouble and the trio then launched themselves over the Heartless and attacked them as these type of Heartless' weakness were their backs, destroying them with combinations of slashs, powerful gusts of wind-spells and Firaga Spells as Riku decided not to use his darkness for the time being.

Zack and Dulor in the meantime were still fighting one another to the point of jumping on top of the mill wheel to continue their clash. However, their extra weight had finally worn down the years of old wood as the support holding it finally snapped, causing it to land onto the ground with a thud, surprising the two before continuing their fight briefly. However, their movement was now causing the wheel to move and roll away from the building and off course. Both men had to now struggle to keep themselves upright while also continuing to fight each other agressively, Zack walking backwards with Dulor walking fowards on the mill wheel.

A sight which, as the mill wheel had unexpectedly and helpfully squashed some Heartless along the way while making a slight U-turn to the direction where Jack was, was very odd in and on itself, noticed by Sora and the others who stared in dumbfounded shock, unable to believe what they were seeing.

"What the hell?" Vincent asked, in utter disbelief.

"Didn't see that comin'." Lea blinked, just as dumbfounded as his friends.

Sora on the other hand, while confused, noticed something he and the others didn't earlier, because as Jack was climbing out of the hole once the Pirate thought it was safe enough to do so, realised that the wheel was heading into his direction behind him. So the young Keyblade Master shouted out to him, "Jack, behind you!"

Unfortunately, Jack heard too late, as, while he did feel the the rather odd soft tremor that was getting a little stronger and louder, was completely oblivious on what the hell was going on. Unexpectedly, the wheel ran over his head, but due to the wood being weak and that he was still halfway in the hole, Jack was run right through halfway and ended up having his arms pinned to his side, stuck and lifted up by the turning turn wheel, being lifted upside down as he screamed in alarm, with the bottom half of his body sticking outside of the wheel, which nearly caused the alarmed Zack and alarmed Dulor to nearly fall off as the two were dumbfounded briefly on how this actually happened.

"Is he always this clumsy?" Cloud asked, while quickly slicing another Heartless in half when he sensed it before it could launch a surprise attack.

"Blame the rum for that!" Will answered, once again fighting off the Heartless, which were now forcing him, Cloud and the rest of the group back into the jungle in an all out huge fight that was starting to get out of hand, and the group were starting to see why despite the sky remaining normal.

Jack in the meantime, mentally groaned as the key, due to him being briefly upside down while he was rolled around, slid off from his neck and the string got caught in the nail from inside the wheel. Being forced to wait until he was the right-way up, once his feet touched the ground, it gave Jack a chance to free himself and go right into the wheel, running along inside it like a Hamster in an attempt to recapture the key. Unfortunately, the lower attactment of the wheel, a metal pole, only being the same height as his fore-head, came into few and to his dismay he was about to hit it...

 _CLUNK!_

He was hit so hard on the head by the metal pole that Jack lost consciousness and fell out from the side and slumped to the ground, while the wheel was rolling away. Quickly coming out of unconsciousness seconds later, Jack shook away the dizzy-spells and, seeing how far the wheel was getting away, cursed to himself before scampering to his feet and took off chasing after it, while Sora and the rest of the group continued to fight the Heartless all over the jungle.

* * *

Meanwhile, completely unaware of the events that was going on, Pintel and Ragetti were dashing madly through the forest, carrying the prize Chest between them, cackling and laughing delightedly. Despite not yet knowing what they were going to do with their prize, others wanted it and that was a good enough reason to steal it.

But as they were congratulating themselves on their escape, their said escape had come to an ultimate stop when a familiar voice spoke out cockingly, "And what are we up to?" and changing by the tone, the owner was grinning.

The said owner of the voice belonged to none other than Reno who, along with Ven, Aqua, Xion, Kairi, Elena, Myde, Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Elizabeth, blocked the two would-be thieves' path, the redhead shouldering his Mag-Rod with a grin, and most of the others glaring at the two pirates, their weapons in hand. Except for Elizabeth who just smiled and sastifaction and reached out for her sword to join her friends in a fight if they had to...only to feel nothing but air from her hip, and quickly remembered that Will had it since he didn't have one of his own. This was noticed by the others as she glanced up at Pintel and Ragetti, her smirk melting into that of embarrassment.

"Next time, carry two instead of just one." Myde suggested to Elizabeth.

"Ah, relax. The rest of us can handle these two losers since we out-number them." Reno said confidently with a shrug.

Despite the Turk's words, Pintel and Ragetti exchanged gleeful looks. Dropping the Chest, they drew their swords in a threatening manner, and Pintel saying challengingly, "Oh 'eally?"

Both Myde and Goofy gulped nervously, while most of the others held tight grips on their weapons, with Aqua having Elizabeth behind her so that, since she was left weaponless, she can be protected, while Mickey grunted at the two pirates, "You can't even open the Chest without the key, anyway. Not with Sora and the others too busy trying to keep Dulor away from it!"

Pintel and Ragetti were a little daunted by this, but still, they weren't about to relinquish their stolen property so soon. They began advancing on the group who, despite having larger numbers, knew that it was a better decision to back off a little in order to find Elizabeth a better place to keep her safe before they can consider on fighting the two piates.

"Hey, Dulor's fighting Zack on a old wood ferris wheel that's rolling on it's own." Goofy spoke up, in a tone of confusion as he gazed to his left when he heard something unusual.

He was right. As everyone else heard the sounds of something very big that was barreling through the forest, and the slash, faint but addible of metal upon metal. They looked in the direction of the sound where Goofy was looking and were met with one of the strangest sights any of them had ever beheld. It wasn't a ferris wheel as Goofy had thought it was. Instead, it was the mill wheel that was rolling right by them. The fact that such a thing was happening in the middle of a seemingly deserted forest might have been odd enough in itself, but that was nothing compared to what was going on top of the wheel. Dulor and Zack were locked in what seemed to be a death struggle on top, somehow managing to keep their balance on the continually rolling wheel at the same time. Jack was running after the wheel, waving his arms in agitation while shouting "Bugger!" repeatedly in his attempts to catch up.

Ven, Aqua, Xion, Kairi, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Myde, Elizabeth, Reno and Elena stared at the bizzare sight in opened-mouth disbelief and shock before most of them glanced at one another, all of them wondering at the same time on how in Kingdom Hearts did Zack, Dulor and Jack get into this mess and where Sora and the others were, though it was possible they were still busy fighting against Aced. None the less, Ven could only mutter in dumbfounded disbelief, "Okay...?"

"That's...weird." Myde muttered, blinking.

Pintel and Ragetti on the other hand, only glanced at each other in a short confusion, the former shrugging, before the two decided to forget about the odd situation and turned their attention back to the others who looked back at them and now knew that their situation was only about to get worse. The two pirates had their wicked eyes gleam at them, now more serious and forced the others to have Elizabeth behind them though it was starting to become a slightly bad case of trying to keep her safe as well as getting the Chest.

However, the retreat/advance came to a halt as Heartless then appeared surrounding the group, causing everyone to freeze in their tracks, with the two pirates now becoming quickly nervous at the familiar monsters.

"Not the Heartless!" Donald groaned in exasperation.

"We'll have to take them out." Aqua told them, standing her ground as she summoned her Rainfall Keyblade she hasn't used in twelve years.

"Easy for you to say." Reno said, eying the Heartless nervously while standing his ground. He's never seen or heard of these things before, but by the looks of them, they were _definately_ not friendly.

However, before anyone else could do anything, bolts of light then appeared above them out of nowhere and quickly eliminated the Heartless instantly, before suddenly, much to everyone's shock and confusion, a figure leaped down from the trees above and took out the remaining three Heartless that survived before panting a little and wiped away invisible sweat from her forehead. It was a young girl about Kairi's age with long raven black hair that went down halfway her back, gentle amber eyes, a black and pink leather short jacket with her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, a white top underneath, dark skirt and shorts underneath, long dark navy socks that went up to her knees, black small boots, black guanlets on her wrists that went up to her elbows, chains on her skirt shorts, and to the group's shock...

"A Keyblade?" Kairi asked, shocked as she and her friends eyed the Keyblade that resembled to both Sora's Keyblade and Mickey's Kingdom Key-D Keyblade, but silver bladed with the outside hilt being a night-sky blue, the teeth at the tip was star-shaped which was matched by it's keychain.

Either ignoring Kairi's comment, or simply not having heard, the new girl sighed, "And to think that these things still exist. I just can't believe it!"

"Who are you?" Aqua demanded at the new girl. "Why do you have the Keyblade?"

Turning to Aqua and her group, the girl rubbed the back of her head, saying, "Weeelll...I was about to ask the same thing about you guys." until her gaze turned to Ven and...for some reason, she seemed rather shocked which confused him.

' _Why does she look...familiar?_ ' Ven thought to himself. He couldn't understand why, but for some reason, this girl felt familiar. Could it be that he still had no memories of his past at all? How did that make any sense?

His suspictions were confirmed as the girl stuttered, in a tone of disbelief, "...Ventus? Is that you?"

"Huh?" Ven blinked, asking, "How do you know my name?"

"You don't remember?" The girl asked, even more shocked and...dismayed, before she told him as though trying to trigger memories out of the boy, "Ven, don't you recongise me? It's me-Skuld."

"Skuld...?" Ven repeated. He tried hard right now to remember if he remembered anyone by that name, but for some reason...he couldn't.

"Do you know this girl?" Elena asked, puzzled.

"Well, this kid certainly knows him, that's for sure." Reno commented.

Mickey, trying to clear up the confusion, gazed at Skuld and asked, "'Cuse me, Skuld. But uh, how do you know Ven if he doesn't know who you are?"

Skuld looked crushed by this, and gazed at the ground, muttering, "...He really doesn't remember, does he? Which means...none of you know where he really came from?"

"I'm really sorry, but...I have no idea what're talking about. To tell the truth...I don't even know where I originally came from." Ven apologized, feeling bad for the hurt that was on Skuld's expression.

Pintel was dumbfounded as he asked Ragetti, "Any idea what's goin' on?"

"I 'hink that kid lost 'is memories and 'oesn't know what's going on." Ragetti supplied.

But before this could continue on, at the very instant when the tension seemed to be at it's breaking point, as axe zipped out of nowhere from behind Ven's group and buried itself in a tree right beside them and the others. Ven, Aqua, Kairi, Xion, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Myde, Elizabeth, Reno, Elena, Skuld, Pintel and Ragetti looked at the axe, than looked behind them and what they saw caused the blood to freeze in their veins and their hearts nearly stopping the growing fear. The mutated fish-men of the Flying Dutchman were crashing through the forest, yelling and screaming terrible things that none of them could really understand, but which they none of them wanted to find out about, and to make things worse, the crew was heading straight towards them.

"Whoa!" Reno cried out in fright as he and the others turned and backed away along with Skuld into Pintel and Ragetti who both froze in sheer horror at the mutated crew coming straight at them that were out for mortal blood. He had known that Davy Jones to be very dangerous considering the pirate could summon a giant ocotpus for a coursed meal, but no one ever mentioned that the guy himself and his crew to be mutated into ugly, _mutated, Jenova-like, humaniod fish_!

"...Didn't see them at all like this before!" Mickey muttered, terrified beyond belief while Donald, Goofy and Myde were nearing a hysterical terrified panic attack.

Pintel and Ragetti, the first to move to a quick exit when danger reared its ugly head, began scooting backwards. They almost bumped into Elizabeth, unconsciously handing her their swords as they passed. Elizabeth was still staring in horrified shock at the monsters which were coming rapidly nearer, but when Pintel and Ragetti picked up the Chest from where they had dropped it and began dashing off into the forest, and neither Elizabeth, Reno, Elena, Ven, Kairi, Xion, Myde, Aqua, Mickey, Donald or Goofy were slow to follow.

The crew of Davy Jones chased after the group, and the fear they had felt only increased the longer the chase went on. In fact, Kairi, Xion, Elizabeth, Elena, and even Aqua all abandoned their normal firm resolves and screamed in terror, unable to look back as they could feel more than see that the deadly crew were catching up. Donald let out a terrified squaked scream while Goofy had to leap up to avoid an alien-like knife from knickering him in the bottom.

"Are they catching up!?" Myde cried out hysterically.

"No way in hell I'm takin' a look!" Reno replied.

Pintel and Ragetti, running with the Chest between them somehow managed to smash the thing into a tree, knocking it from their hands. They all stopped, looking at the place where it had fallen, but before any of them could think of picking it up, the crew of Davy Jones barreled down upon them, which pretty much expelled any thought of retrieving the Chest from their minds.

One of the monsters came at Kairi who, remembering the lessons she learned from Sora and Riku before the duo's Mark of Mastery, raised her Keyblade and blocked the attack just in time to avoid in getting her head sliced off. Beyond that, everything at this point became nothing but a blur in the group's memories. It was a constant route of run, stop, fight, run, stop, fight and over and over again. Reno even fully charged his EMR to it's highest level in hopes of electrocuting the ones he was fighting into crisp and was shocked when they were only rendered slightly half-unconscious and had to kick away others. Elena shot fires from her gun at the chests and/or heads of the ones she was fighting while making sure she wasn't running out of ammo, but then had to rely on her martial arts skills.

Ven tossed his Keyblade expertly at five of the mutated crew several times before blasting magic spells at them along with Aqua, Xion, Mickey, Donald and even Skuld who seemed perfectly skilled herself and they even teamed up to counter attack as much as they could. Kairi and Goofy tried a double-twirled-tornado skill with both her Keyblade and his Shield to knock back the ones they were both fighting, though this didn't seem to do much at all. Myde attempted to use his Water Abilities by creating watery clones of himself to do the job in taking out the ones he was stuck fighting with, and even water pillers to knock them further way, but they just kept on coming back. Even Elizabeth, Pintel and Ragetti were having trouble themselves, especially since they only had two swords to fight with to pass between the three of them, it proved to be quite a challenge of knowing when to throw the sword and who should catch it.

It soon became clear that the crew were not only mutated, they were also immortal and that not even the Keyblade can solve this problem, and they had a distinct advantage over Ven's group. Not only that, there were too many for to handle on their own because they were mere mortals, wielding magic, Keyblades or not. It was evident that though they might be able to slow them down, Ven, Aqua, Kairi, Xion, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Reno, Elena, Myde, Elizabeth, Skuld, Pintel and Ragetti were all fighting a losing battle.

During the fight, one crew member with a shell for a head, grabbed hold of the chest while drawing away from the fight and smirked, before taking off on his own through the jungle to head back to the Flying Dutchmen, believing to have achieved the goal of reclaiming the Heart of his captain.

* * *

Jack had finally managed to catch up with the mill wheel and leaped back inside, running along with it in hopes of catching the key that was drawing closer and closer to his reach while both Zack and Dulor still continued their fight before the youngest man nearly fell off, but managed to hang on, though caught sight of the Key in front of him, much to Jack's dismay.

Just as Zack grabbed hold of the key, he was forced inside the wheel while hanging onto one of the wooden supports as Jack drew out his sword again and did the same as the younger man and clashed against him. Dulor, seeing this unfold, leaped in and did the same as the other two, clashing their blades while hanging on for poor life as the wheel still rolled on it's own through the jungle. Though in retrospect, doing this was now becoming apparent to keep their minds off the fact that they were repeatedly going around and around up and down repeatedly which was starting to feel queasy in their stomachs as well as making them feel dizzy.

Eventually, Jack managed to grab the key and pulled it loose from Zack's grasp while yanking it from the string and broke it in half. The pirate then avoided the young swordsman's sword and climbed out of the wheel, carried up until he noticed a steep hill in front of him. Acting quickly, he jumped up and grabbed hold of large leaf of a palm tree, dangling in the air while the wheel, with both Zack and Dulor still inside it and hanging on for dear life, quickly rolled down the hill that was increasing the speed, leaving the two men to now try not to get themselves killed while they fell.

Once again in possession of the key, Jack easily slid his way down to solid ground, with super hard fruit landing around him. As he put his sword away, the Pirate captain noticed from a short distance away as one of the crew of Davy Jones was running in glee, with the Dead Man's Chest in hand. Seeing how he needed to get to it and it was going to make his day a bit easier and quicker, Jack then picked up one of the fruits and tossed it in the air, weighing his chances of success. He then carefully aimed and threw it. It hit it's mark, knocking the fish-pirate off-course and stumble to the ground, and not only he dropped the chest, but his head was knocked off as well, several feet from his body.

"Uagggh!" The fish-Pirate groaned, before calling out to his body, "Anido! Anido! Follow my voice, follow my voice!"

The body surprisingly stood up, headless as it somehow could hear it's head calling out to him. But since it had no head, it was blind. "To the left!" He instructed, before realising that it was tthe wrong direction as his body was walking towards something that would knock it down, calling out, "No, to the right! Go to the right!"

As Jack, oblivious to the comical scene happening behind him, knelt down to the chest and righted it up, prepearing to open it when...

 _SMACK! Thud!_

The body of the fish-pirate had collided with a tree and collasped to the ground, causing Jack to look behind him, dumbfounded at first before he saw what was going on, while the head of the fish-pirate sighed in exasperation at his body, "No...that's a tree."

"Oh, shut it." Jack told the head, getting annoyed by the problem that was not his own. He had enough problems to worry about as it is.

With one Fish-Pirate out of his dilemma for now, Jack instead slid the key into the lock of the chest, unlocking it before he opened it up, somewhat nervous to see the heart. To his surprise, not only it wasn't like other hearts he'd seen being released from the Heartless whenever Sora destroyed them with his Keyblade, but it was also...still beating in a normal, slow, rythm of _ba-boom_ , _ba-boom_. Jack had actually expected the heart to suddenly fly off to return to Davy Jones, but...it didn't. It wasn't even glowing either.

Perhaps it was because like it's owner, the heart was cursed to lose it's light and become mutated as well. Jack felt his own heart beat uneasily as he gently picked up the heart, gazing at it in wonder. How the heart and it's owner could still be alive was a full mystery to him, but he had a theory on why this was the case.

However, before Jack could ponder further into his thoughts, shouts coming from his left brought him back to reality and when he turned to look, to his shock and horror, the rest of the mutated crew were chasing Ven and the others along with a new girl he didn't recongise, and then from behind him, Sora's group were being pushed into his direction as well, pursued by Heartless that were aiming to get everyone else's hearts. In panic, he hurriedly stuffed the cursed heart inside his shirt and closed the chest before making a run for it, out of sight to avoid in getting into more trouble.

The two other groups in the meantime, reuniting with each other, Sora, back in his normal form, quickly saved Kairi by smacking one of the mutated Pirates on the head with his Keyblade and despite the last of the Heartless defeated for now, he and his group were met with another problem as their eyes all widened in shock and disbelief.

"These guys are Davy Jones's crew!?" Lea exclaimed in horror. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew by the looks of things.

"They're...cursed? Ugh, you gotta be kidding me!" Sora exclaimed.

"Let's worry about that later and get outta here!" Isa suggested.

No one argued with this and while Ven's group were now rejoined by Sora's group, ti was still a losing battle while Terra slashed at the bellies of some of the mutated pirates with his Keyblade and Pintel and Ragetti, with the chest still in sight but not realising that the key was in it's place and that the said chest was now empty, picked it up and made a run for it, followed by Sora and the rest of the group, with the cursed Pirate crew of Davy Jones hot on their heels. Sora and his friends could only hope that Zack, Angeal and Genesis were alright.

* * *

Having made it back to the beach, Jack ran madly through the shallows, to the two long abandoned longboats. The tide was slowly creeping up the shore, and already the boats were floating in a foot of water. Time was running short. Jack had not yet thought of whether he should take this opportunity to run for it. He knew that Sora's group would not be very happy if he did so. The last thing he wanted was to have the world travellers even more angry at him, and the last thing he wanted was to abandon them, especially since Sora was at the more risk of getting killed by Davy Jones.

Instead, he focused on making sure that he got his stolen property to a safe place. Arriving at the closest longboat, panting, his eyes darted around the bottom of the longboat, and he immediately spotted what he was looking for, since this was the rigth one, much to his relief.

"Jar of dirt!" He snatched up the jar. Hastily he opened it, and dumped out some of the dirt onto the seat. Taking the heart of Jones from where he had stuffed it in his shirt, he proceeded to stuff it into the jar before replacing the rest of the dirt back into the jar to hide it even more. This may not have been what Tia Dalma had originally intended him to do with the jar of dirt, but in Jack's mind, if he had both land and the heart in the same place, then there was nothing that would be able to hurt him, especially since he had zero chances of claiming his own Keyblade that would free him from his dept.

But just as he snapped the lid of the jar closed, he heard a roar behind him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the crew of Davy Jones had caught up with him and was about to run him through. Before the fish person could go through with it, Jack grabbed up an oar from the longboat and blocked the weapon's thrust since he didn't have time to draw out his own sword. He then realised, as Sora, Roxas, Riku, Lea, Isa, Kairi, Xion, Aqua, Terra, Ven, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Cloud, Vincent, Elizabeth, Will, Myde, Reno, Elena, Pintel, Ragetti, and Skuld came into view and were having problems of their own in fighting the off the mutated crew in a struggle of life and death, Jack wasn't going to make a quick getaway even if he wanted to, especially since they were all heading rapidly towards him. At this moment, he had no idea how they were all going to get out of this mess.

* * *

Sora's group were not the only ones who were having problems at the moment. Dulor and Zack were beginning to regret their hasty action in jumping not only on the mill wheel, but also having jumped inside it since they were trapped in the runaway wheel. They had forgotten about fighting, and were now only concentrating on holding on as they screamed their heads off and getting rapidly dizzy. The wheel was rolling crazily, bumping and scraping across both the smooth and rough ground, spinning around and around, always spinning. It seemed to them that the world would never stop going in circles.

As luck would have it, Sora's group were not having the best of luck at all as they continued to fight off against the mutated crew as long as they could, though they were really getting very tired despite the cure spells or potions they repeatedly had to rely on to keep their energy going. Just then, in a twisted fortune, the wheel then rolled towards the shore line and even squashed half of the crew of the Flying Dutchmen into the shallowed waters, witnessed by almost everyone else who stared in disbelief before the wheel rolled into the shallows and collapsed into the water with a splash, finally coming to a stop. The two sides then resumed their fight, even though both Will and Riku noticed how Pintel and Ragetti were trying to make to the boat with the chest. Nodding at each other, the two then raced to stop them from leaving with one of the longboats.

Both Zack and Dulor in the meantime, tumbled out of the wheel, momentarily too stunned to move, with the latter having fallen completely into the water, ending up having some up his nose which felt awful, the stinging sensation that made his eyes water. Zack in the meantime, seeing that the fight was still going on in earnest, rose to his feet and grunted, "Okay!" and moved to help his friends.

Unfortunately, though the wheel had stopped spinning, Zack's head had not yet caught onto the fact that the world was, in fact, solid and unmoving. His sense of balance not being what it normally was, and he got only a few steps before he fell into the water again. He attempted to push himself up, only to fall back in dizzily again.

Dulor, having waited a few moments to get his bearings, was able to regain his balance faster then Zack, and he saw Jack being too busy to even notice him, so Dulor used this to his advantage. Racing through the water to the longboat, he found what he had been expecting to find. In Jack's coat were the letter of Maleficent and felt a smile of truimpth. Once he joined Maleficent's side, he could finally put an end to his enemies; Sora, Donald, Goofy, Jack Sparrow, Will Turner, Elizabeth Swann, King Mickey, Riku, Kairi, Axel, Roxas, Xion, Namine and Saix.

Just as he was thinking this, he suddenly noticed the dumped sand that was scattered across one of the seats, and the jar of dirt. Something snapped in Dulor's mind. He believed that he knew what was in that jar, something much more valuable than dirt. Perhaps a back-up item would help if he wants to join Maleficent's regime. Gazing at Jack Sparrow who was still far too busy fighting the fish-pirate to even notice what was going on, Dulor gazed at the jar of dirt once more and finally...he made his decision.

* * *

The fight came closer, and soon, Sora and his friends found that they were literally surrounded, by the swiftly closing in of the fish people and the rising ocean tides. The landing party, before splintered by petty internal quarrels, now was united in the more general goal of trying to escape in one piece. However, some of them still wanted to try and lookout for their own interests.

Pintel and Ragetti had managed to get the Chest back into their clutches. Ignorant of the fact that the Chest was empty, and therefore utterly without any value, they threw it into the longboat and tried to make a run for it. Will and Riku, though, had managed to stop in front of them and stopped the longboat from going forward, pointing Will's sword and Riku's Keyblade at the two would be thieves.

Both Pintel and Ragetti reached for their swords, searching for them in the general vicinity of their belts, only to remember after a few seconds, that they didn't have them since they inadvertedly given them to Elizabeth, a sense of deja vu happening, only this time to both of them and they had no allies with them at all. Will and Riku, seeing this, both snorted in laughter at this sight. Looking up at the two younger men, the two pirates shrugged and smiled with embarrassment. Before Pintel grabbed up a net from the longboat and Ragetti got a hold of the remaining oar. Brandishing their _"fearsome"_ weapons, Pintel yelled gruffly, "Come on, brat and Turner!"

They may have been trying, indeed, they have thought that they were looked very fearsome. However, they only succeeded in both looking and sounding generally ridiculous. Both Riku and Will only smirked in amusement, shaking their heads in a gesture of exasperated but amused, _'Oh dear'_. But attention was soon drawn in both quarters. Riku, Pintel and Ragetti found that they were under attack by the fish people, who were stepping up their attack on the rest of the group. Will was distracted by the sight of the Chest, which both Pintel and Ragetti had left forgotten on the seat of the longboat.

While Sora tossed his Keyblade expertly at some of the mutated Pirates twice before the said weapon returned to him, it still wasn't enough as he and the rest of the group were still pushed back in one of the most hardest battles of their lives. Jack in the meantime, seeing that Will was holding the chest, panicked as he knew that should Will look inside, it wasn't going to be pretty. Thinking quickly, he swung the oar and banged his opponent back before swining the oar again and banged Will a good one on the side of the face, the younger man dropped like a sack of rocks. It was a little revenge of what Will did to him on the Isle of Muerta a year ago.

But Jack didn't have time to feel the sastifaction of his little revenge and didn't even borther either. The mutated crew were pushing the rest of the group back, trapping them by the side of the longboats. All their best effort wouldn't be able to beat them back. They were defeated.

Elizabeth saw Will fall (though she observed not the cause), and rushed toward him. "Leave 'im lie," Said Jack, "Unless you're planning on using him to hit something with."

Mickey gulped nervously, terrified and for once in a long time, at a complete loss. He had no idea how to get out of this mess, and from the panicked looks on his friends, even the clever Jack Sparrow, neither did they. "Welp. I hate to say it fellas, but we're not gettin' out of this mess."

"You're tellin' me." Reno admitted in agreement.

"Not with the chest, at least." Dulor spoke up, before reaching into the longboat and grabbed hold of the chest, "Leave now, and I'll handle you all later!"

"Are you insane!?" Elena protested, horrified as she saw what Dulor was about to do.

"Just go!" Dulor urged, not leaving the young woman room for an argument, and without hesitation, before dashing past the surrounding fish people, deflecting sword blows. Once he was past them, he turned on a bust of speed and ran toward the forest, the mutated men of Jones' crew hot on his trail.

Despite that the Keyblade wielders of the group felt there was more to this than what Dulor was attempting to do in saving their and everyone else's lives, none the less, they stood stunned. There was no hope for the former Nobody, as he couldn't outrun them for long; he's a dead man. However, there is a time to respect the last brave act of a doomed man, and there is a time to turn tale and run without looking back. And in Jack's mind, the latter choice seemed a rather attractive option at the moment. "I say we respect his final wish."

"I agree!" Myde said hysterically.

"But what about Angeal and Genesis!?" Kairi cried out worriedly, being the first to notice the absence of the said two swordsmen.

"They took Aced to somewhere else!" Sora exclaimed.

"We can't just leave them!" Xion cried out, worriedly.

"Yes we can, because they'll be fine!" Jack argued.

"Aye!" Pintel said in agreement.

Despite this, those who didn't want to leave Angeal or Genesis behind despite that the said two had taken Aced away from this world, everyone else had no choice but to escape now while they still had the chance. So, with hesitation, the group got into the two longboats and despite both rides being a tight squeeze due to increased numbers on their parts, began to row back to the relative safety of the Black Pearl.

Unfortunately, little did Jack know, he would definately be leaving this island empty handed, and that Dulor's ' _sacrifice_ ' was really his own escape route that would cause even more problems in the near future, putting the Realm of Light into jeapody once more.

* * *

 **A/N: I am so sorry for the delay, guys. Amounts of stress, visitors, and such, I needed a break before I could write again. So as promised, I've brought you the new chapter. I bet you guys are shocked to see Skuld here in the picture.**

 **Until next time, I'll see you in the next and possibly final chapter of this story.**


	10. The Beginning of the End

**Author's Note: Depending on how this will go, I think this will be the final chapter of the story before I make preperations for my version of KH3. Speaking of which, Square Enix just made a statement last week that the game itself will not be released until at least in 2018 next year...unless they change their minds again like they normally do, so we'll wait and see.**

 **I still don't own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy.**

* * *

 _ **CH 9: The Beginning of the End.**_

It has been at least half an hour since the group made it back onto the Black Pearl when Will had finally began to regain consciousness when he became aware of the rocking movement of the ship. The first thing he saw was the relieved expressions of Elizabeth, Sora, Kairi, Roxas, Xion, Mickey, Donald and Goofy hovering over him. Since the beginning of this adventure, this was a very nice thing to wake up to instead of the things he'd seen lately.

Then, as memories came back to him, Will immediately asked, "What happened to the chest?" still feeling a little groggy, but remembering enough of the past few hours to ask that question (and to think, somewhat sheepishly, that he had kind of behaved like an idiot).

"Dulor took it to drove them off." Elizabeth answered, softy, subdued at the idea of what had happened.

"So we're pretty much empty handed. Sorry." Sora added with an apologetic shrug, while he and his friends, even Aqua, Ven, Terra, Riku, Cloud, Zack, Vincent, Reno, Elena, Lea, Isa, and the newcommer Skuld, who were having seperate conversations of their own, were ignoring the rest of the crew doing their usual chores, and purposely ignoring Pintel and Ragetti's arguement even though they could clearly hear them.

"You're pullin' too 'ard!" Pintel yelled.

"You're not pullin' 'ard 'nough!" Ragetti yelled back, as the two said pirates were hauling the two longboats back onto the deck.

"We're not even sure where Angeal and Genesis are either." Mickey added to Will as they all stood up, with Sora, Roxas and Goofy helping Will to stand, while the king continued, "Wherever they may be, they took Aced with 'em."

Sora was about to say something when he felt the familiar pressence materialize next to him in his vision, and the ghostly form of Vanitas appeared as well. To Sora's surprise, the former darkness of Ventus actually looked concern. Either that, or maybe he was faking it. The young Keyblade Master couldn't tell.

" _Master Aced...I barely even know him much._ " Vanitas said, thoughfully. He then smirked and gazed at Sora, adding, " _Then again, like you, Ventus is easily forgetful._ "

' _What's that supposed to mean?_ ' Sora asked in his mind, not wanting to voice it aloud, knowing that if he did that, the others would think he was a lunatic, and he had a feeling that they would be right. He pretty much felt like one right now. None the less, he glared at Vanitas, still not trusting him and really wished that the dark part of Ven's heart would just go away.

Vanitas rolled his eyes, thankfully being able to commuciate even with Sora's thoughts. " _Whatever thoughts flows in his thoughts, they flow into my mind since I'm a ghost now. Heck, even I don't have a clue on where that idiot originally came from. But considering this new Skuld girl, I'm willing to bet he came from where she comes from._ "

' _Skuld?_ ' Sora blinked, gazing his gaze at Skuld herself, speaking with Ven, Terra and Aqua.

In the meantime, Lea and Isa were trying so hard to ignore the fighting between Pintel and Ragetti until finally the latter two's bickering got so loud that the redhead finally snapped, and growled, "Oh, for Moogle's sake, _SHUT UP!_ "

This did the trick, as the two said pirates froze and then silently continued their job after seeing the heated and scary glare from the former Flurry of Dancing Flames who sighed, rubbing the back of his head which was messing up his hair a bit more. The reason for this is because his yelling also made everyone else somewhat nervous, except for Isa, Reno, Cloud and Vincent who all smirked.

"Sorry 'bout that." Lea said to everyone else on the deck. "Post-Traumatic-Stress."

"Hey, don't feel too bad 'bout it." Reno said, smirking a little. "I was actually just one second away from doin' the same thing, with the exact same words..." before admitting a little sheepishly, "Except I would've used Ifrit instead of Moogle in my sentence."

Lea shrugged at his fellow redhead, and replied, "Yeah, whatever. I'm still more than a little shaken in seeing those creepy mutant-fish people."

"And I'm not?" Reno asked, skeptically. "Those guys scared me crapless."

"At least they can't turn ya' into a statue." Lea muttered under his breath, still more than a little traumatized in when Sa'luk's Heartless form briefly turned him into a statue in Agrabah.

Jack, a little bit freaked out by Lea's exclaimation himself, shrugged it off while clutching the jar of dirt close to his chest while heading up towards the helm, believing that things had turned out just fine. In fact, he was back to his usual cocky self, which made everyone else oblivious as much as he was oblivious of the actual out-come.

Gibbs, noticing there was one party member missing while having questioned on why another young woman had joined them, went up to Jack and asked, "Where's Dulor?"

"Fell behind." Was Jack's less than sorrowful reply.

Gibbs stopped, the full implications of that statement coming clear to him. "My prayers be with him."

However, Gibbs had never been one to mourn for very long, "Best not wallow in our grief." He said, his tone becoming sunny once more. He followed after Jack up to the stern. "The bright side is, you're back and made it off free and clear."

He may have spoken a little too soon, because at that very instant, the sea trembled violently, and with a great roar of rushing water and foam, the fearsome bow of the Flying Dutchman rose out of the water, right beside the Pearl. The unexpected and frightening entrance of the legendary ghost ship caused everyone, including every crew member on the Black Pearl to freeze in dumb terror. Kairi, Xion, Elena, Aqua, Elizabeth and Skuld all gasped and raised their hands to cover their mouths at the sight of the monsterous ship before them, utterly terrified. Reno's eyes widened in sheer terror, speechless beyond belief, Lea's breath was shaking in horror, blinking as he felt his heart almost freeze instantly.

Myde, Donald and Goofy all screamed and while the latter two clinged onto each other with their eyes bulging out in terror, Myde himself leaped into Isa's arms while the said blue-haired man stared in terror at first, before he glanced at the man that leaped into his arms, before unceremonily dropped him onto the deck, the younger man landing with a thud and grunting, "Omph!"

Mickey took a step back, unable to hold back a soft whimper of fear due the sight being so scary that he was hoping that it was all but a terrifying dream that he wanted so badly to wake up from. He never forgot the first time in seeing the ship so up close. To see it by the side on board another ship now only made things worse.

Even Cloud, Zack and Vincent took a cautious step back, their eyes widened in utter disbelief, with the oldest man muttering, "Dear Holy..." with the former two glancing at each other, knowing the dangers everyone was in now.

Sora(who had forgotten about Vanitas who disappeared again), Riku, Roxas, Ven and Terra were so stunned with awe and horror that none of them could even say anything and for a split second, Sora could somehow feel his heart feeling pulled rather painfully, as though it was being torn away from his chest at the mere sight of what he quickly came to realise was the Legendary Ship itself, and by the stern of the opposite ship in the pirate hat, Sora was certain, by the tentacled face, was the legendary Captain himself; Davy Jones. He had expected the guy himself to at least be a bit more human. Now he knew it wasn't the case, because like the crew, the Pirate Captain was...well, a mutant fish.

On the rigging and the deck, the monstrous crew of Davy Jones jeered and shouted contemptuous insults to the Black Pearl, waving all manner of fearsome and alien weapons. And above it all, standing like an evil lord over his gruesome court, the immense figure of over Davy Jones towered over all.

"Lord on high, deliver us." Breathed Gibbs, crossing himself in terrified awe.

Jack on the other hand, being possibly the only one not as terrified, possibily even being rather confident, brushed past his First Mate, saying, "I'll handle this, mate."

The mortal Pirate Captain strolled to the railing, and held up the jar of dirt while calling out mockingly, "Oi, fish-face!"

This comment alone caused everyone onboard the Black Pearl to glance up at him with disbelieved expressions, with Reno holding an expression that said, ' _Did-I-hear-that-right?_ ' on his face. While he did want to call Davy Jones that, he held it off due to the terror. He never thought that Jack Sparrow to do that or have a similiar personality to him, Lea and Sora combined.

Even Davy was puzzled as he glanced down at Jack, mentally wondering what that idiot was trying to accomplish now, especially since the said younger man was holding up...a pathetic jar of dirt?

"Lose somethin', eh? Scoungili-Eh-Whoa!" Unfortunately, Jack had sort of forgotten to look where he was going in the midst of his gloating and had stepped wrong. He toppled head over heels down the stairs, causing everyone who saw him to flinch visibly, with mumbles of "Oh! Ooh... Ow...Ouch." from most of them, especially Elizabeth, Pintel, Sora, Zack, Lea, Goofy, Mickey, and Reno with sympathy.

As usual, Jack was fine. In fact, he was still quite cocky of his chance. What was most important was that the jar of dirt was still in tact. He held it over the rail; he wanted to make sure that Davy got a good look at it. "Got it."

While Davy was still dumbfounded, Jack scrambled to his feet, and started swaggering along the deck, "Come to negotiate have you, ya slimy git? Look what I've got." Jack started speaking in a sing-songy tone of voice, clearly wanting to taunt Jones. " _~I've_ _got a jar of dirt; I've got a dirt, and guess what's inside it~._ "

Jack only succeeded in sounding totally absurd. Most of the crew, Sora, Riku, Kairi, Roxas, Xion, Lea, Isa, Ven, Aqua, Terra, Skuld, Myde, Cloud, Zack, Vincent, Reno, Elena, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Elizabeth and Will could not believe what they were seeing, as the those from other worlds glanced briefly at each other before looking back at Jack while he had sang.

"...What _is_ he doing?" Sora muttered, dumbfounded beyond belief.

"How should the rest of us know?" Cloud responded with a skeptical look that said, ' _You're-asking-us?_ ' on his face.

"You do realise that you're actin' like an idiot, right?" Reno spoke up to Jack who either didn't pay attention or chose to ignore him.

Davy Jones on his part, was very unimpressed by this display, before turning to his crew and grunted, "Enough."

Jack had greatly underestimated his advantage and he was about to get a sign that he had gone a step too far and had caused Sora and all of his friends to be in great danger. The gun ports along the Dutchman's side suddenly began opening their great jaws and extending their individual cannons, all aimed straight at the Pearl. When Jack saw this, his confidence more or less shattered. Everyone else all took another step back, as Mickey mumbled a terrifed, "Uh oh..."

"Uuuuuuuh ooooooh..." Donald echoed, more shakingly than his King.

"Gawrsh!" Goofy exclaimed in fear.

"Oh great." The real Sora muttered, with a freaked out expression.

"Hard to starboard." Jack muttered, so softly that it was a wonder anyone was able to hear him, but someone did, and that someone was Sora.

"Hard to starboard!" Sora shouted.

"Hard to starboard!" Elizabeth echoed, and with those three words repeated twice, the entire crew, Sora, Riku, Kairi, Lea, Isa, Roxas, Xion, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Cloud, Zack, Vincent, Reno, Elena, Myde, Terra, Aqua, Ven and Skuld erupted into action.

Gibbs immediately was on the wheel almost instantly, turning the bow of the Black Pearl away from the teeth of the Dutchman's fire. The Pearl swung to starboard, the wind catching her great sails and swelling them to their fullest extent. They had no chance in fighting now, and with mutant-immortal fish-people to go up against, that was only asking for a death wish which no one on board the Black Pearl had in mind at the moment.

"Hard to starboard!" Davy Jones growled, storming up to a shark-headed crew member, ordering, "Send his beloved Pearl back to the depths!"

" _FIRE!_ " The shark-headed crew member ordered.

Immediately, the Flying Dutchmen fired at the Black Pearl. Everyone onboard the latter vessel weren't able to miss getting grazed by the Dutchman's canons. However, their move was enough to take the Pearl ahead by at least a few seconds. The Dutchman wasn't going to let its prey escape so easily. She turned after the Pearl and the chase was on. Everyone onboard, including Sora and his friends, were swarming up the Pearl's lines, letting down as much sail as could be had to catch the wind. But here was more to Dutchmanthan at first met the eye. It had been built to destroy, and more than just those obvious arms of destruction had been built into her. The captain would not hesitate to use them if he had too.

One of these weapons were the triple bow cannons that thrust forth from the Dutchman, firing off round after round, the three cannons rotating, so that the fire which pelted the Pearl's retreat was continuous. The iron balls whistled through the air and struck the Pearl, shattering on impact, inflicting damaging and crippling blows. Myde screamed girlishly when one nearly hit him, and then Gibbs gave out a scream when he was nearly hit as well, before he was stuck frozen in paralyzing fear. Jack, still clutching the jar of dirt, scurried up the wheel, and taking over from Gibbs and shoved him over before he began steering the Pearl in a zigzag pattern, the connection which he shared the Pearl somehow telling him where the next round of fire would be coming from and Jack responding fast enough to get her out of the path of most of the cannon fire.

It didn't help that Heartless appeared, which meant that those who didn't belong in this world had no choice but to fight them while everyone else had to handle with the ship and avoiding the cannon fire. As Sora slashed the last of the Heartless fifteen minutes later, and gradually, it began to seem as if the cannon fire was becoming less and less frequent.

"Hey! They're slowin' down!" Goofy exclaimed when he noticed how far back the Dutchmen was getting further and further behind, and sure enough, the Dutchman's canons were now useless against the Pearl's speed. They had fallen out of range.

"They're not slowin' down, we're going faster." Zack corrected, blinking in surprise at how far back the enemy vessel was.

"Aye, we've got 'er." Said Gibbs, triumphantly as he joined Zack, Goofy and even Terra.

"How are we faster then them?" Terra questioned.

"Against the wind, that's how the Dutchman takes her prey. But with the wind..."

"We stole her advantage." Terra finished for Gibbs after realising where this was going.

* * *

On board the Flying Dutchmen, everyone saw just how far the Black Pearl has quickly gotten and was simply too fast for them now, even with the winds blowing against the sails. One crew member shouted in announcement, "We're out of range!"

"Break off pursuit, run her light and douse canvas!" Davy Jones commanded once even he saw that chasing them was no longer an optain.

"We're giving up, sir?" Questioned the shark-headed crew member.

Davy Jones said nothing, but instead, he sneered an evil grin, which was quickly echoed by his First Mate. Oh he was far from giving up, and he had already come up with a secret plan beta. It was time to bring out the big guns. Or in this case, the big fish.

By his command, crew members were at the turn-wheel, turning it around and around, and grunted in pain as the top of it slowly rose, while Davy Jones chanted with a growl, "Let no joyful voice be heard! Let no man look up at the sky with hope. And let this day be cursed by we who ready to wake..."

* * *

 _Back on board the Black Pearl..._

Unaware of the turn of events, Marty noticed the Dutchmen had stopped chasing after them and announced to everyone else, "They've given up!"

The announcement that the Dutchman had fallen behind was greeted with joyous shouts from the assembled crew, some of them throwing their hats into the air and dancing ecstatically. They no doubt believed that the whole thing was over and that they had won. Jack himself was smiling confidently, feeling much better about the way that things were turning out than he had just a few minutes ago.

Sora and his group, however, felt that something was very off. Why would Davy Jones suddenly call off the pursuit and leave them like this?

"Something's wrong." Vincent muttered softly, voicing the others' concerns.

"Yeah, I don't like this one bit." Roxas nodded in agreement.

"I think we should warn that dumb captain friend of yours, kid." Reno suggested to Sora who nodded in agreement, already making his way up to warn Jack of their concerns.

"Jack!" Sora called up as he joined his older friend at the railing at the stern. "I don't think we should celebrate. Something weird's going on and I think we should think about Davy Jones's other dangerous ideas."

"We don't have time for thinking of ideas." Will spoke up as he joined both Sora and Jack as well, continuing, "My father is on that ship. If we can outrun her, we can take her, we should turn and fight."

Sora glanced at Will incrediously, asking, "What? Against a bunch of fish-pirates who're immortal? We nearly got our heads sliced off by those guys at the deserted island!"

"The lad has a point." Jack said in agreement, "Why fight when you can negotiate." He set the jar of dirt on the railing in front of him and said, as if it were the answer to all their problems, "All one needs is the proper leverage."

"With a jar of dirt?" Sora deadpanned.

At that very moment, the entire Pearl shuddered violently and came to an abrupt halt. The sudden jolt caused everyone to stumble and grab hold of a solid object. It also caused the jar of dirt to fall fro the railing and shatter on the deck below, much to Jack's horror as he let out a horrified squeal, as if he had just witnessed the violent death of an old friend. Bolting down the stairs, he began pawing through the sand which was scattered around the deck. Horror mounted on horror, as he realized that not only had his precious jar of dirt been broken, the only key to his freedom had not been in it.

"Where is it?" He asked himself frantically, "Where is the thump-thump?"

"What was that!?" Roxas cried out, glancing around while trying to piece together what caused the sudden jolt.

"We must 'ave it a reef." Someone in the rigging yelled.

Sora, Donald, Goofy, Kairi, Roxas, Xion, Ven, Elizabeth, Elena, Reno, Skuld and Lea had rushed to the rail, scanning the waters, and suddenly Lea with the group had a terrible gut feeling, and given what he'd heard recently, his breath was caught in his throat and prayed to the gods that it wasn't what he really thought it was. Still, he couldn't help but comment shakily, "Doesn't look like a reef to me."

"That's because it's not a reef!" Riku exclaimed once he, Aqua, Terra, Cloud, Zack, Isa, Myde, Mickey, and Will all immediately realised, combined with feeling the similiar thing earlier and the words they heard confirmed their fears. "Get away from the rails, now!" grabbing Sora, Kairi, Xion, Roxas, Elena and Elizabeth from the railing, with Sora and the others following once they saw this.

"What's happening?" Kairi asked, fearfully.

"The Kracken!" Aqua exclaimed, "It's underneath us!"

"WHAT!?" Donald, Goofy, Sora, Lea, Ven and Elena exclaimed in horror.

Reno's eyes widened as he muttered, "T-The big, fat, giant, nasty, squid...!?"

" _That's_ why they stopped." Lea realised, referring to the Dutchmen. "They didn't give up. They stopped so that they can summon the darn thing!" which made the rest of the group realise this was what they sensed was wrong.

"WAAAK!" Donald screamed.

"Uh-oooh!" Goofy trembled in absolute fear. "We're sea-food!"

The moment Aqua had shouted, 'The Kracken', those words caused Jack to instantly stop what he was doing and look up, an expression of absolute terror stamped on his features.

"Not if we can help it!" Terra pointed out, as he'd be damned if he was going to let history repeat itself and kill everyone on board the Pearl.

Will had the same idea in mind, as he shouted in command, "To arms!" before descending the steps to the main deck. "It'll attack to starboard. Run out the guns and hold for my signal."

In the ensuing scramble to obey his orders, nobody seemed to remember Jack. He had lost both the dirt and the heart, lost his chance to claim his own Keyblade, he might as well count hope lost as well. No one noticed Jack, disappearing from view, not could they have guessed just what he was planning on doing. Donald, Goofy, and Myde followed Pintel and Ragetti below decks, hurriedly getting the guns ready, as per Will's orders. Suddenly Ragetti caught sight of something that made him freeze. Poking Pintel, he gestured out the gun port, muttering scaredly, "Look!"

When the other four did look, their expressions matched with the wooden-eye-balled Pirate, as the port was covered by an enormous tentacle, covered with huge suction cups that were feeling their way over the ship, looking for a target to strike. To both Donald and Goofy, it gave them a flash of deja vu, remembering their times when they and Sora had to fight the giant Ursula in Atlantica- _twice_ , in fact.

"Easy, boys!" Will called, standing on the stair to below decks.

" _Easy_ for you to say!" Myde quivered, in half sarcasm.

Above deck, the view was no less encouraging. A tense, uneasy silence had settled over everyone on board, as the tentacles began appearing over the starboard side. The rest of Sora's group had brought out their weapons as they, some of the crew and Elizabeth backed away slowly as the tentacles slowly edged closer and closer, practically nervous and beyond terrified.

"Will," Elizabeth said nervously, as the tentacles began sliding over the railing, advancing threateningly towards them, while Mickey gulped scaredly, Lea was losing his cool since the redhead had wished to never let this happen and now was facing the possiblity of seeing the throat of the Kracken as his last sight, and even Vincent was more than a little nervous.

"Steady, steady."

"Uh...Will?" Sora muttered. The tentacles were coming closer and closer and he and the others were beginning to feel more than a little worried.

"Anytime now...!" Lea added, pleadingly.

"Hold." Persisted Will, calm and collected under the pressure of the moment, which made everyone wonder how the devil can he be so calm when they were getting closer and closer to being eaten by a giant Octopus. "Hold."

"What's wrong with you!?" Skuld cried out, almost hysterically.

"Hurry up, you big palooka!" Donald exclaimed scaredly.

"Yeah, I think we've held fire long enough." Pintel said in agreement.

Will still remained firm. The tentacles were coming up faster, they were nearly halfway across the deck, and Sora, Kairi, Riku, Elizabeth, Lea, Isa, Roxas, Xion and Mickey finally turned to Will in exasperation and shouted, " _ **Will!**_ "

"Now, _please_!" Reno shouted half a second later.

Then and only then did Will give the order everyone had been waiting for. "Fire!"

Cannon fire burst from the cannons of the Black Pearl, hitting the tentacles of the Kracken at point blank range. The Kraken's eerie screams of agony pierced the ears of everyone onboard. The tentacles writhed, nearly crushing them, coiling about themselves around the charred flesh that had been blasted away from the appendages. With the screams of the Kracken gradually fading in the air, the tentacles slid back into the water.

Despite the crew breaking into cheers, Sora's group and Will all knew that the kracken wasn't defeated so easily, especially since they only managed to damage it's tentacles for a short time being, and a _very_ short time being. Something this large had more power that one would need to be a merman in order to take it on fully underwater, and Sora didn't think magic would be a wise choice this time. Unlike Ursula, the Kracken was far too dangerous to take on.

"It'll be back." Vincent warned softly.

"We have to get off the ship." Cloud nodded in agreement.

Zack then winced, as he noticed the destroyed long-boat and muttered, "That would've been easy if we had a boat or two."

"There's gotta something we can do to fend if off long enough." Xion said, worriedly.

"Yeah, but how?" Ven asked.

Riku was trying to think when his eyes caught a small barrel of gunpowder rolling out from under the wreckage. An idea began to form in Riku's mind, and idea, which, even if it didn't win them the battle, might gain them some time. He turned to both Gibbs and Will, asking, "Do you guys have a net?"

Suddenly, Will realised what Riku had in mind, and nodded. "Pull the grates!" He shouted, knowing that they had a limited amount of time, "Get all the gunpowder onto the nets in the cargo hold."

The crew, by this time sensing the jig was up, scrambled to obey. Will grabbed a rifle from a passing pirate, and handed it to Elizabeth. He did not have to say anything, she knew already. She was the only one that he could trust to get it right.

Sora in the meantime, turned to Kairi and said, fearing that something was bound to go wrong, and said, "If we survive this, I'm making us a bunch of good-luck charms, because I really wanna apologuise to you and the others."

"Same here." Kairi nodded, feeling the same thing as her friend was feeling. She hoped that they would be able to survive this crisis, or else not only she'd lose her best friends and everything they fought to protect, but the entire Realm of Light would be lost to Chaos and Bhunivelze.

The grates were pulled back from the deck, and in the cargo hold, the Pearl's crew was hurriedly pushing all the barrels of gun powder which they could find onto the net. Unfortunately, the plan ran into an unexpected snag. As Reno was helping load the barrels, he realised that they were short on this and grunted, "Damn it! You've gotta be kidding me!"

"What's wrong?" Cloud asked, concerned as he came down to check.

"We've only got six barrels of the gun powder in here. All this boat's got left is barrels of alcohol." Reno sighed, running his hand through his spiky messed up hair, while careful in know tilting his goggles. "Even though I kinda hoped to die drunk, I think I'd rather put up a little sacrifice in loading them too." which he was met by looks of disbelief from the pirates, while Goofy, Donald and Myde immediately began searching for the barrels of rum.

Gibbs, who was beside Cloud heard this, and began climbing the stairs to find Will above deck. Will, at the same moment, was heading down to the cargo hold. Gibbs stopped him half-way down the steps. "There's only a half-a-dozen kegs of powder."

"Then load the rum." Will snapped back almost immediately, as if it was the most obvious solution to the problem. He knew that it would be the one thing that the Pearlwould always have a guaranteed supply of.

But, this suggestion, perfectly logical to Will, was met with nothing short of sacrilegious to the pirates. Gibbs turned a pleading glance at Cloud, silently begging him to reconsider. The younger man rolled his eyes and muttered, "It's either the rum or our lives."

"You heard the man. Unless you're more than willing in becomin' sea-food." Reno added, already rolling one of the rum barrels in as Myde, Donald and Goofy were doing the same.

Gibbs knew that it was a useless task to argue. Besides, there could be no way of telling if Reno was serious about that last Kracken bit. However, there still could be no mistaking that agreeing was almost physically painful. "Aye, the rum, too." He told the rest of the crew, half-heart-brokenly. It seemed like one of the hardest orders that he had ever had to give.

Gibbs' agony at burning was to the pirates the very meaning of health and happiness was mirrored by the pathetic wails which sounded from the rest of loading crew(except Myde, Donald, Goofy and Reno who were more than happy to sacrifice the rum), but they had no choice.

Sora and the others above the deck were preparing themselves for the huge battle that would no doubt cost so many lives that none of them wanted to sacrifice, when he, Kairi and Elizabeth gazed out at the railing on the other side of the ship and their eyes widened in disbelief and for Sora, the utter feeling of betrayal seeped deep into his heart. Out in the open ocean, where the last remaining longboat was taken, heading towards the island close to them, was none other than Captain Jack Sparrow, who was heading towards it; running away from his duties, abandoning his crew and his friends.

"No..." Sora muttered, devastated.

"How could you?" Kairi whispered.

"You coward." Elizabeth whispered, in hurt and anger. How could Jack do this to them?

Just then, the ship shuddered violently once more, and everyone who again had to try and regain their balance, knew that the Kracken was back, ready for round two, and this time, it will attack will full force. And it did. This time, it thrusted it's massive tentacles with the gun ports, thrusting and destroying everything in it's way. Donald, Goofy, Myde, Reno, Pintel and Ragetti narrowly avoided in being grabbed or hit by the giant, slimy but iron-like tentacles and could only hope for the best that they or their friends wouldn't suffer the horrible fate of becoming the giant monster's latest meal.

Like multiple giant snakes, the tentacles slithered around and up, snapping off wood beams and deck as easily as if the Pearl had been made of twigs. The cannons were thrown about and twisted beyond recognition; any obstacle met with was either destroyed or forced aside. It was not just the inanimate objects of wood and steel that were targets of the Kracken's monstrous appetite. It was also on the hunt for something more substantial, human flesh. The hapless men who were trapped beneath the Pearl's deck could find no place to hide from the ever-searching tentacles. They were dragged, screaming, across the deck and into the sea, where there was only one place for them to end up: the Kracken's crushing maw. It was the stuff of nightmares, but none of them would be able to escape reality by waking up.

Sora immediately slashed against each tentacles that came up towards him with his Keyblade, managing to successfully do a better job than an axe or a cutlass could've done. Still, there were just too many, as though the Octopus had more than just eight tentacles like normal octopus would. But he knew other wise; it just didn't know when to quit. "Thunder!" Sora chanted, using a Lightning spell to at least weaken the tentacles.

Kairi swiped at one tentacle that attempted to get to her, before she was pushed out of the way by Elena when another attempted to grab them both. Fortunately, they were saved by Isa who leaped into the air and successfully sliced off the tips of three tentacles before landing swiftly back onto the deck. The former Nobody of Saix nodded at them as Kairi and Elena nodded in graditude before scampering to their feet and continued to try and hold off the tentacles along with the aid of everyone else who were not taken into the sea to become fish-food.

Cloud, Riku, Roxas, Terra and Zack all slashed their weapons at the tentacles that nearly got most of the crew while avoiding them as well, as Aqua and Xion both used a good combination of twirling around with their Keyblades to give more damage, knocking away the monster's slimy arms as much as they could. Lea set four tentacles on fire which then slithered down into the water before coming back up to cool off. He was then forced to summon his Keyblade and awkwardly sliced one into two pieces, the deafening roar making his ears hurt and ring.

Vincent shot fires at the Tentacles before reclipping his ammo before grunting as he realised that he was down to just two left. So as he avoided other tentacles and was too late to save a crew member who was dragged down to his doom, picked up the dropped rifle and used what was left in it to continue to fire at it. Ven tossed his Keyblade at two tentacles before it returned to him and rolled out of the way before casting fire to at least fry it a little. Skuld leaped into the air and thrusted one tentacle down with her Keyblade which was surprisingly powerful, but even she knew that the Kracken was not giving up until Riku and Will's plan was set.

Despite this, many lives were lost as the Kracken continued it's rampage and assualt, and while Sora and his friends and some of the crew were lucky so far, the said couldn't be said for the victums and there were several close calls. It didn't help when Will, dangling above the deck, was hanging onto the net that had been filled with the rum barrels. And down below him was Elizabeth, holding a rifle, looking up at Will with an expression of fear and expectation on her face. He was shouting at the beast, as if by taunting it, he could lure the kracken into the trap.

* * *

Jack had stolen the only boat that was still in tact after the first attack from the kracken, and was now rowing away from the Pearl with all the strength he could muster. He had witnessed the Kracken's first attack. He had to give the worldly travellers and the crew credit for making such a stand and surviving. He knew, however, that Davy Jones wouldn't give up. He didn't keep the Kracken as his pet just because he was fond of oversized squids. The Kracken was ruthless, and relentness, driven by a hunger that was never sated. No matter how many ships or men it digested, it would always come for more. And he had no intention of becoming the latest menu on the Kracken's dinner menu.

But then, there _was_ something eating him on the inside, niggling at the back of his mind, that he couldn't quite get rid of, however much he may have liked to. Jack Sparrow, by his own multiple saying, had never been one to listen to his conscience, but at this very moment, his conscience was shouting to him in a voice so loud that he couldn't ignore it. And he knew why; he was doing the wrong thing, and he knew this, because, well, he is Captain Jack Sparrow, a pirate.

Yet, there were times when he had done the right thing, like a year ago for example. He learned of other worlds, yet had no desire to venture out to them, as the waters of this world were adventures enough for him. Sure, the fancy Keyblades were a nice touch, but one had to be chosen in order to wield those things. And they choose their masters, not the people, and they can be picky. Lea and Isa both struggled to master in wielding their Keyblades.

And as such, Jack never regretted in doing the right thing. But those had been under rare circumstances, only when he could see the benefit that there might be to himself. What benefit could there be to him now? He was not about to start acting all honorable now when there was so much at stake. But what was at stake? Should he let others suffer for what he had done? Maybe once, the answer would have been an unreserved yes. But that was before Jack had found out that not all treasure was silver and gold, the real treasures to be valued above all else were friendship.

Despite himself, the protests were swiftly beginning to diminish in strength. Images began flashing across his mind; Gibbs, William, Elizabeth, Cotton, Marty (even Pintel and Ragetti to some extent), and then, Sora, Donald, Goofy, Lea, Isa, Roxas, Xion, Kairi, Ventus, Mickey, Terra, Aqua, Cloud, Zack, Vincent, Reno, Elena, Skuld and even Myde. Especially Sora, the teenaged boy who like William had the honest streak, but unlike William, thought more than acted rashly. The boy who inadertvently granted him the possible abilities to wield the Keyblade. The boy who helped him gain back the Black Pearl.

Jack stopped rowing, all his strength drained from his body. He looked at the Pearl; the Kracken had returned and was in the process of slowly tearing the ship apart. The sight seemed to rip at Jack's heart at the same time. The Pearl was a part of him, and been ever since her had traded his soul for the chance to walk on the deck of the ship that had been stolen from him. Even now, when his time was up, Jack didn't regret that bargain, nor did he wish to take back even one second of the time that he had spent on her. Now, she was making a last brave stand, while her Captain was abandoning her like a coward.

Not only that, Jack had promised himself not to get Sora involved into his struggles with Davy Jones, and now he realised, with a heavy heart, he had just broken his own promise. Sora had fought long and hard to find his best friends, and maybe that's why both of them were sort of alike. Both struggled to find who or what they were looking for, not willing to give up despite the hardships. But Sora couldn't be anymore different than Jack; that boy didn't deserve this, and neither did his friends.

He looked back at the distant island. There, with land was safety and security, but was it freedom? He looked back once more at Pearl. There was his home, his freedom, and his life. Perhaps even cowardience was darkness too, and Jack had long decided not to let the Heartless devour his heart, but now he realised he couldn't be more wrong.

Heartless craved for hearts that were slowly surcumbing to darkness, and Jack couldn't help but feel that the darkness were entering the cracks in his own heart. A heart can lead one either on the right path, or it could lead them astray. Once upon a time, Lea had done the wrong things, yet he was given a second chance, since his Nobody, Axel, too had made many mistakes in the dark path.

He took out his compass and opened it. He wasn't sure what he should do, but sometimes, it is only when the mind is confused by so many choices, that is when we must listen to our hearts, for there we will hear what we want most. The compass had never before steered him wrong, malfunctioned and drove him to distraction, yes, but its needle had always pointed true when he trusted it.

" _May my Heart be my guiding Key._ " Aced's words echoed in Jack's mind. At first, the pirate didn't know the meaning of the crazy Keyblade wielders' words when the man in the bear mask fought against Sora and the others. But now...Jack started to understand the meaning of the words.

Hearts were the keys to one's life. And the compass was the arrow of Jack's heart. The needle wavered, than swung about and pointed steady. Jack stared at the compass for a moment, and then realised with a small nod of determination, what he had to do, as it was not only his own decision, but it was also his heart's decision.

And for once, he would agree.

Despite that the saying was a little quirky and rather too silly to even say, Jack couldn't help but mutter to himself, "May my Heart be my guiding Key." and picked up the oars before he started rowing with renewed energy, to the direction the compass had shown him. It was what his heart wanted most, after all. He couldn't go wrong with that.

Little did he know, this direction was the key of his freedom all along, as well as his newly discovered destiny.

* * *

Donald, Goofy, Reno, Myde, Pintel and Ragetti, who'd all been petrified at first when they earlier had to try not to see the sickening crunch of a poor victum's back being snapped, managed to eventually make their way to the deck while avoiding the tentacles around them. Seeing that their friends were having trouble, Donald, Goofy and Reno then knew that they had to join them and raced into battle. Donald using his magic as much as he could, Goofy twirling around with his shield as he preformed his "Goofy-Tornado", and Reno was electrocuting each tentacle as he could with his EMR while managing to use his back-up gun to shoot at them. While firearm was never his foretee, that didn't mean he didn't know how to use them.

Mickey was shooting away orbs of light from his Keyblade and whipping at the tentacles with his speed and agility, but even he was beginning to become brutually exhausted. Despite the terror of having seen what the Kracken actually looked like, the young king refused to give into his fear unless he had no choice when something would happen that would render him helpless.

Just then, Mickey felt something slimy and strong curling around his waist and lift him up into the air. It took him a second to realise that one of the Kracken's tentacles had got him and now he was about to become the monster's latest meal. So he screamed and despite the others trying to get to him while they were horrified to see him captured, Mickey knew that no one could save him and panic and fear nearly made his heart explode that it made him want to cry. Just as he thought of all of his friends he wouldn't even get the chance to say goodbye, his mentor, his family, especially Minnie, someone decided to keep him alive.

And surprisingly, that someone was Myde who, with his Styer, thrusted at the tentacle as hard as he could, slicing it and causing the rest of it to retreat, while the chopped off part fell limp onto the deck, and lost it's grip on Mickey who decended and landed on top of the former no.9 who collasped face first onto the deck, kissing the damp floor.

At first dazed on his luck of being rescued, Mickey realised who he landed on top of and who had saved his life, before he leaped off of Myde and quickly said, "Sorry, Myde!"

"No, prob." Myde groaned, his voice muffled as his face was still planted onto the black wood of the Black Pearl.

Whether the Kracken actually heard what Will was saying or if it just happened to tangle the net up in it's tentacles and Will's grasp slipped and he became tangled in the net, trapping him. Despite this, Will could only think of what needed to be done. While Sora and the others, including Mickey and Myde who both stood up and continued to fight the tentacles, Elizabeth would get no better chance than this, so even as he saw desperately at the rope which was pinioning his leg against one of the barrels, he cried down to Elizabeth, "Shoot! Elizabeth, shoot!"

Down below, Elizabeth, unmindful of the chaos around her, including Pintel and Ragetti were dashing past her, trying to seek refuge in the decimated captain's cabin. All her concentration was focused on the swinging net. But as she raised the rifle to fire, she paused for half-a-second, hoping against hope that Will would be able to fall clear in time. Despite this, while the group then continued to fight the tentacles, Kairi then noticed a tentacle slithering it's way towards Elizabeth, and gasped, not thinking for a second as she raced and cried out, "Elizabeth, look out!" and pushed her aside.

Though the Princess of Heart did save Elizabeth, the tentacle did not stop as it wrapped itself around Kairi's ankle. She screamed as the kracken pulled her feet out from under her, and she began to be pulled backwards.

"Kairi!" Sora exclaimed as he raced forward, grabbing hold of his friend by the waist and hanged onto her with Aqua, Donald and Goofy racing to help, but they too were being slowly pulled into the cabin. To their luck, both Pintel and Ragetti were chopping at the wriggling tentacle wrapped around Kairi's leg, freeing her.

The five of them freed for now, the group turned to the rifle while the rest of their friends from other worlds continued to try and shake off the tentacles while avoiding them at the same time. Elizabeth dashed to the rifle which Elizabeth had dropped. But before she could get it, another crew member snatched it, and took aim at the waving tentacles. The fool act of bravery was his last. One of the tentacles came up, whipped around his body and pulled him into the air. The gun slipped from his grasp and landed on the top deck of the Pearl.

Ven and Skuld both pulled Elizabeth out of the way from another tentacle while Aqua, Donald and Goofy raced to help the rest of the group and survivors, leaving Sora and Kairi both looking at each other, then at the gun, and despite not being skilled in using such weapons, the two teenagers headed for the steps. A violent shudder rocked the Pearl. Falling to their knees, Sora and Kairi both crawled up the stairs as quickly as they could.

The two got to the top, both grabbing hold of the rifle only for a booted foot came out of nowhere, stepping down on the rifle, and preventing Sora and Kairi from moving it. Sora grunted in frustration and attempted to punch it when Kairi looked up and held him off from doing so, her expression turning to shock, disbelief and relief. When Sora followed his friend's gaze, his expression matched that of Kairi's, realising that the boot belonged to none other than Jack Sparrow.

He came back.

He had been standing above, looking out over the destruction which was being wrought by the kracken. He glanced down and saw Sora and Kairi. Jack knew what had to be done. "Leave this to a professional." He told them as he reached for the rifle.

Jack raised the rifle to his shoulder and took careful aim, as everyone else from other worlds saw that he had returned and realised what he was about to do, before wisely stepping away while continuing to avoid the tentacles. At the same moment, Will at last managed to cut himself free, and he fell downward to the deck. Then and only then did Jack know it was time. He only had one shoot, and as he had once told Will, Sora, Donald and Goofy, when you only had one shot, it was best to wait for the opportune moment, and the opportune moment was now.

One barrel of rum was enough to set off a chain reaction of thunderous, fiery explosions. The Kracken whose tentacles were wrapped around the net roared in agony as it's flesh was seared and burnt away, and flaming projectiles of wood buried themselves in it's flesh the tentacles wrapped around the Pearl's hull and waving in the air, thrashed violently for several seconds, than their movements seemed to slow, slower and slower, until at last with an eerie, bone-chilling moan, the tentacles retreated back into the water.

Despite this, it wasn't without casualties. The ship was all but nearly destroyed, small patches of fire lingered, a deathly silence surrounded the group of suvivors with their hearts wrenching in horror at the sight before them. This had been the power of the Kracken. The only ones left on the very ruined vessel were Sora, Kairi, Captain Jack Sparrow, Riku, Mickey, Aqua, Donald, Goofy, Myde, Ven, Skuld, Terra, Roxas, Xion, Lea, Isa, Reno, Elena, Cloud, Zack, Vincent, Elizabeth, Will, Gibbs, Marty, Cotton and his Parrot, Pintel and Ragetti who slowly gathered around at the devastation before them.

Goofy joined Isa at the railing, and asked, uncertainly, "Gawrsh, is it gone?"

"No..." Isa hushfully replied, his brows narrowing as he knew the full answer. "We've only made it furious."

"So what do we do now?" Cloud asked, sensing the fear in everyone else. In fact, he was feeling it himself. The Kracken would no doubt return to finish it's work.

As Jack, Sora and Kairi came down the stairs, the pirate made his decision, no matter how difficult and heavy this was, Jack knew that there was only one choice. "Abandon ship. Into the longboat."

"What?" Sora blinked, shocked. Even he knew that the Black Pearl was very important to Captain Jack Sparrow. Now he was willing to abandon it? "You're leaving behind the Black Pearl?" with Gibbs equally horrified.

"She's only a ship, mate." Jack somberly replied, with a heavy heart.

"He's right. We have to go." Aqua said in agreement.

"But there's no room for all of us to fit into the longboat." Myde pointed out, knowing that some would probably have to stay.

Or as Terra had realised, as he too said, with a heavy heart, "Then...the rest of us have no choice but to leave this world behind." much to the shock of Sora, Riku, Kairi, Lea, Roxas, Xion, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Myde, Ven, Zack and Elena.

"It's only way." Vincent agreed, though his head was hung low in guilt, but he knew, there was no other choice. "Right now, we're no match against Davy Jones. We'll have to come up with a plan to stop him and Maleficent, as well as Chaos and Bhunivelze."

Cloud, Isa, Skuld, Aqua, and Reno all nodded in somber agreement, as the red-haired Turk said to the devastated group, "Sometimes you have to take orders that are really hard to accept. There's no other choice sometimes in that matter."

"Besides, we have to try, in both ways." Will agreed, as he knew that they had no other choice. "We can get away as it takes down the Pearl."

Even though Sora was torn from whether to stay or not...finally, he made the hardest decision he could ever make, that was just as hard as Jack's decision to abandon the Black Pearl.

* * *

 **A/N: Okay, so this didn't end up being the last chapter as I hoped it would amd sorry for the cliff-hanger, but the next one will be and it'll also be shorter than this one. See you in the final chapter, fellow readers!**


	11. Final Chapter: Exile

**Author's Note: Here it is. The final chapter leading into my version of KH3. Enjoy and be sure to grab some tissues too, because this one will be a shocker.**

 **I still don't own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy.**

* * *

 _ **CH 10: Exile.**_

After the single tensed minute that seemed like the longest minute anyone's ever faced, Sora shut his eyes tightly, and took a deep breath and finally, made his announcement.

"Fine. You're right." Sora said in guilt and defeat.

"Sora?" Donald asked, in disbelief.

"Are ya' sure?" Goofy asked, worriedly.

Sora shook his head, admitting, "I don't like it, but...even I can't take on the Kracken, let alone Davy Jones. We'll have to come back, after we've come up with something."

As much as everyone else didn't like it, Kairi, Riku, Lea, Roxas, Xion, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Myde, Ven, Zack and Elena all sighed in defeat as well. Sora was right; they'd been caught off-guard this time, and with little to no information on what they actually came for, they'd just have to face Yen Sid for the failure of figuring out the plots of Chaos and Bhunivelze and of Davy Jones. But they weren't going to risk in staying since they had limited time.

Even Gibbs didn't like it, but knew that there was no choice. "Abandon ship, abandon ship or abandon hope."

With those words, the meager survivors began to hurriedly make their preparations to abandon the Black Pearl. The people of this world made for the Longboat, while those from other worlds made to teleport into the gummiship since it was their only transport to leave this world behind. But only two lingered a little, in guilt and difficult decision making heart-aches. Sora wished it hadn't come to this, as he feared that this world would fall into darkness if he left it behind, but he would have to trust in his friends of the Caribbean to keep the darkness at bay until he got back. It wasn't fair. He couldn't help but feel like that the entire thing was all his fault. Had he known about Xehanort and Chaos sooner, none of this would've happened. Was this the cost of being a Keyblade Master? The moment you earned the title, that things then just fall apart? Considering how Mickey struggled to keep to his promises since he passed his test years ago, and how Aqua failed to keep Terra and Ven safe from Xehanort and had been trapped in the Realm of Darkness for twelve years.

" _Some Keyblade Master you are._ " Vanitas taunted as he rematerialized beside Sora who looked away. The raven-haired boy grinned, " _Yeah, I know what you're thinking. But hey, even your Pirate friend screwed up; it's thanks to him that it came to this. Not even the power of the Keyblade can solve this problem._ "

Sora didn't say anything, and as much as he hated to admit it, Vanitas was right. Thankfully, the former darkness of Ventus disappeared from Sora's sight, which gave him the chance to gaze at Jack, who like him, was having an heavy heart right now. Despite what the pirate had told everyone, Sora felt more than heard the pain of sacrificing the part of his soul and heart. Or why else Jack would've gone through the trouble of getting the Black Pearl back from Barbossa? The ship itself was Jack's light, his home, and his freedom.

Besides which, Jack was a good man. Because even he had a heart, and he could feel happiness and sorrow. Right now, the pirate was in the path of the latter.

Sighing, Sora approached his friend whose back was facing him, as though he was saying goodbye to his beloved Pearl. "Hey..." Sora began, uneasily. "Thanks for coming back to us."

Jack turned to face the teenaged boy standing a few feet from him, and said softly, sadly, "We're not free yet, mate."

"We'll figure something out. As soon as we can, I'll come back, and then we'll settle Davy Jones for good." Sora promised, only being able to return half to himself, boldly. "Maybe we can help you get a new one to call the Black Pearl."

"It's more than just the Pearl, Sora." Jack began to admit, beginning to struggle to find his words. Finally, he decided to admit the truth, though he was struggling to stay it without shaking slightly, "It's not after the ship...it's after me."

Sora's eyes widened in shock. "What? But why?"

"I was young and stupid thirteen years ago." Jack began, "Not thinking straight, which is nothing unusual, since that hasn't changed. I...I used to work for Beckett, and the Black Pearl was under my command until I began to see...to see how evil he was. He wanted to use innocent black people as slaves, and I was in charge in taking them as they were, in his opinion, nothing but cargo."

"So what did you do?" Sora asked, shocked at what he was hearing. The more he heard about Lord Beckett, the more the guy's heart was clouded by greed, much like Maleficent and Xehanort's.

"I took it upon myself to set them free, to a place where he couldn't reach them." Jack shrugged a little, before he pulled back his sleeve on his right arm, revealing an imprinted P that was forever stamped onto his skin. "By doing that, Beckett took it as betrayal, and this is the result. He's the reason why I'm a pirate for the rest of my life."

"He made you pirate just because you were doing the right now?" Sora exclaimed softly, disgusted by Beckett's cruelty. "No wonder you don't like the guy."

"It gets worse." Jack said, even though he nodded in agreement. "He also sank my ship, and I was unable to save her, no matter how I tried. When I then recalled the stories of Davy Jones himself...back then, I wanted the Pearl back so badly that I would've stupidly traded my soul just to feel her again, be on her deck again."

"And that's what you did." Sora concluded for him, once again shocked. "You traded your soul just so you can get the Black Pearl back."

The pirate Captain nodded, "Only for thirteen years. After that, it's either me becoming next on the squid's dinner menu, or serve him for 100 years on board the Flying Dutchmen...which could very well end up being all eternity. You've seen what has become of those who work for him. His crew were men once."

Despite that Sora was angry upon hearing this, at the same time, it also made sense. Jack had believed that if he had gotten the heart of Davy Jones, he could break off the deal to keep both the Pearl and his freedom, or, as they both learned hours ago, the power of the Keyblade would also free him. But since Jack had neither, he was a doomed man. Plus, Jack did come back to save them and the other survivors. But now, Jack's time was up.

"Wish there was something I could do." Sora muttered, sadly.

"You're not angry?" Jack asked, a bit more than a little surprised.

Sora shrugged, saying, "Well, I'm not happy with what you did, but at the same time, I can't be really mad, either. I know that you're a pirate, but...but you're nothing like Xehanort or Maleficent, or Davy Jones, or even this Beckett guy. You did more good than other pirates did, and it's not fair that you were made one just because you helped other people."

He smiled a little, and added, "Helping others always come before asking others for help. That's what Mickey once told me a year ago. There isn't any reason why we can't help out others who need our help. At least, those who are innocent or need help in doing the right thing."

"There's some truth in that." Jack smiled a little finally, before frowning again. "I think we should go now, while there's a chance."

"Y-yeah." Sora nodded, suddenly feeling like a life was about to be lost. But at the same time, he sensed that Jack was struggling to make his decision. Either stay on board the Pearl and sacrifice himself, or join Will, Elizabeth, Gibbs, Marty, Cotton, Pintel and Ragetti for the safety of the island. And Sora knew, unlike those he managed to save...there was no way of saving Jack from death.

Or, so he thought.

Just then both of them felt each of their right wrists being grabbed and when they gazed to see who grabbed them, it was Elizabeth who then dragged the two stunned men into the waiting crowd of Sora's companions who noticed this well after everyone else went into the long boat and both Sora and Jack nearly crashed into Riku and Cloud, before the four of them, Zack, Vincent, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Kairi, Roxas, Xion, Ven, Aqua, Terra, Skuld, Reno and Elena gazed at Elizabeth questionly, wondering what the woman was doing in shoving Jack with them instead of the longboat, wondering why she suddenly wanted him to go with them, going against the World Order that was broken for the past twelve years by Xehanort.

Kairi asked Elizabeth in shock, "What are you doing?"

Then they saw it. The look in Elizabeth's eyes, even if Elizabeth may not have been aware of how much her eyes betrayed her purpose. A look of dark conviction, and the lingering guilt that was rising inside her heart. She began speaking, her voice sounding rushed and tight, "The Kracken's after Jack, not the ship. But I can't let him die, but he can't stay here anymore either. You have to take him with you, don't you see? I'm not sorry."

Sora and the others were speechless from shock and betrayal. But even then, they sensed Elizabeth's guilt. In order to save Jack's life, he had be taken away from this world, exiling him so that he could live. But even she had not expected to feel this suffocating feeling of guilt. What made it worse in a way was that Jack didn't start accusing her of anything, or didn't even look angry. Why was he silent? Why was he still smiling at her in that same infuriatingly calm manner? Jack was actually smiling for several reasons. He smiled because Elizabeth had become like him after all, just as he had always thought that she would. He smiled because he knew that now that doing this would not be his fault, nor it would be Sora's. He smiled because even if Elizabeth wasn't sorry, she was guilty. He could see it in her face that this was not an easy choice to make, but she was doing it anyway. He admired a person who was willing to do whatever was necessary. So, the only thing that Jack needed to say to sum up all of this was one, simple word.

"Pirate." He murmured softly, and smiled once more. It might have been an insult to some, but it was the highest compliment that Jack could give.

He didn't know if Elizabeth got the message, but she didn't give him time to consider her carefully. She stared at him painfully for a few seconds longer, then turned and walked away, without once looking back, leaving Jack to leave behind this world without death, going on a journey to other worlds with Sora and the others. The group glanced at each other, shocked, before Cloud finally made the difficult announcement, knowing that there wasn't anything else they could do now.

"Let's go." Cloud said, softly.

"You sure this is a good idea?" Myde asked, worriedly.

Lea sighed, not answering to Myde, but instead, clamped a hand onto Jack's shoulder, saying softly, "Looks like you're one of us, now."

Despite the uneasiness of going to other worlds, Jack shrugged, muttering, "Not so bad."

"I'm sorry." Sora muttered, guiltily.

No one else said anything else on that matter. Instead, Mickey and Donald both silently commanded the gummiship to teleport them and the others on board, and soon, they and the rest of the group, now joined by Captain Jack Sparrow, were teleported onto the gummiship, which would then take flight and leave the world of the Caribbean behind, and despite that Jack would indeed be free from his dept upon their arrival to their destination...it was already too late.

* * *

As Elizabeth clambered into the boat, Will immediately asked when someone was missing, "Where's Jack?' he asked.

Elizabeth stared at Will, the raw guilt in her soul causing her normally strong voice to become choked with unshed tears. She did not think that she could forgive herself. She knew, though, she could not face them with the truth here, and in order to prevent the knowlage that Jack would indeed survive as well, she instead answered with a lie, "He elected to stay behind to give us a chance."

The other pirates gazed up at the Pearl, believing that Jack was still there and unaware that he was no longer in this world, but at the same time, was not condemmed to death, and clearly reluctant to have to leave their captain behind. But they couldn't delay.

"Go!" The word was ripped from Elizabeth's lips. The command was reluctantly obeyed. Ragetti let go of the rope which had been holding them to the _Pearl_ , and he and Pintel started rowing away from the Pearl.

Despite this, the moment Captian Jack Sparrow boarded the dream-like command-room of the gummiship, the black-spot in his left hand that implanted his doom faded into nothing, while his right hand unknowingly continued to tingle slightly. None the less, there was no going back now without rising superstition. So he had no choice but the leave behind the world he was born and grew up in. Was this how Sora, Riku and Kairi felt when they were forcefully dragged away from their home world, seperated from each other and other people they've come to know with no choice?

Even so, many others in his home world now believed he was dead, while in reality, he was on exile. The end came all too quickly. By the time the longboat was relatively out of danger, there was not anyone in the group who had not looked back, and who now couldn't look away as the tentacles dragged the Black Pearl under with its gruesome efficiency. Everyone else who was in the longboat that say knew that as they watched the Black Pearl sinking with her captain upon her knew that they were witnessing the passing of a legend. They all felt this loss deeply, each in their own separate way. But in truth, her captain was taken away, and he felt the loss just as painfully as he would've.

But he wasn't the only one who would be feeling the powerful sense of loss.

* * *

Aboard the Flying Dutchman, Davy Jones lowered the spyglass from his eye, having witnessed the Black Pearl at last vanish beneath the waves as he too foolishly believed that his victum was gone as well. "Jack Sparr'a," he said with an air of morbid finality, "Our debt is settled."

The crew was gathered around him, all having seen the final passing of the Pearl. "Captain goes down with the ship." One commented.

"Turns out not even Jack Sparrow can best the devil." Another said.

"Not even the so called Keyblade could've saved him." Another added.

When Davy Jones heard this, his eyes hardened. He turned around to face his crew. "Open the chest." The crewmen all exchanged confused glances, not understanding what prompted the Captain to make such an expected order.

Davy Jones was in mood for curiosity. A dreadful thought had entered his mind, and he couldn't rest easy until he was certain. "Open the chest. I need to see it!"

No one argued with Jones when he used such a tone. Not that anyone would have argued with him under the best of circumstances, since they didn't want the risk of getting their heads sliced off. The chest was hastily brought forward and unlocked. Davy Jones pushed his way through the crew to The chest. He opened the lid and recoiled. The heart was gone. The chest was completely empty. Davy Jones' entire ghastly face became even more terrifying as a look of horrible rage came over it. His nest words were a soft growl, but so great was the anger of the Captain of the Flying Dutchman, it had transformed itself into the howl of a wounded animal by the ending words, and the crew immediately cleared away to avoid his wrath.

"Damn _you_ , _**JACK SPARR'A!**_ "

The man had gotten the better of him at last. Davy Jones had lost. And what's more. Jack Sparrow himself was alive.

But even he and Sora had also lost this battle.

* * *

Taking up residence in her old castle at the Forbidden Mountain until she found a more perfect world to take up residence to complete her goal for world domination, Maleficent gazed out at the never-ending dark sky. But standing with her, was a man whom others in his world thought had met his demise, but in reality, she faked his death just to get what she wanted, as he was a useful and powerful ally that shared her goals of domination.

"Fasinating experience, other worlds, I must admit." The man, looking like a lord of a company of the seas commented.

"There are many others that are worth in experincing, Lord Beckett." Maleficent smiled slyly. "And soon, every single one of them will be ours. All we need is aqquirements."

"You mean the compass from Jack Sparrow, or this Keyblade from this boy. Sora, was it?" Lord Cutler Beckett, alive and well, questioned in slight amusement.

Maleficent was about to answer when someone behind her and Beckett cleared their throat, and the two turned to see that Pete was standing there, looking a little uneasy. In fact, he looked rather green in the face as though he had just seen something that made him feel like he was going to vomit.

"Um, sorry for interruptin'." Pete began.

"Pete, must you always interrupt?" Maleficent sighed, rolling her eyes in exasperation.

"Sorry, m'lady, but the Heartless I've sent to that o'l Port Royal world came back with somebody, and I think he's one of those Organization XIII fellows." Pete replied.

"And what good is that?" Lord Beckett questioned.

Pete shrugged as he handed a piece of paper to Maleficent and Beckett, answering, "Well, he has his heart back, and has decided to join our side, 'cause, uh, he had this letter with him."

He gave the letters Maleficent gave to Elizabeth Swann while the evil fairy took it, and looked at them carefully, especially at the signature which made them completely legitimate. _Dulor_ was written on it.

"I took the liberty of filling in my name." Dulor stated as he was standing behind Pete near the doorway of Maleficent's tower, guarded by two knife-armed Heartless.

Maleficent set the letter aside, and gestured Dulor to come forward while giving a nod to Pete who, slightly reluctant, snapped his fingers and dismissed the Heartless from the blonde-haired man's side. Dulor gave the now gone Heartless a glare before walked up to stand a few feet from Maleficent and Beckett, with slight confusion yet understanding and pride in having made the right choice, if it meant the end of his enemies.

Maleficent herself mentally confessed to herself that she was rather impressed. Despite that this man was once a member of Organization XIII, it seemed that he had decided that her goal was tempting, which made him the perfect ally in the power of world domination. Still, she wasn't going to let him join her that easily. If he wanted to become her ally, he need to do something for her and Beckett first.

"I admire your decision to join me." Maleficent began, before saying, "However, there is a task you must intend first." gazing at Beckett who nodded and turned to Dulor himself.

"Do you have the Compass?" Lord Beckett questioned.

Dulor smirked slightly, and answered, "Something much better." holding up a small bag that hanged loosely in the air.

Both Maleficent and Beckett gazed at it curiously as they both watched the bag undulated and moved, and from within came the sound of a steady heartbeat. Pete on the other hand, placed a hand over his mouth as he suddenly turned more green in the face and felt sick, immediately turning around so that he couldn't see it. Unable to stand it anymore, he left the tower before he could lose his breakfest, lunch, or dinner, or unholily all three at once.

Dulor's confirmed words were that of the triumpth Maleficent felt for once in twelve years, something that she was now confident that not even Sora or his friends can stop her from achieving now.

"The heart of Davy Jones."

* * *

Just when Sora and the others thought things couldn't get any worse, the sight before them as they came to view of the Mysterious Tower, their hearts dropped at the sight before them. With a gasp of shock and devasation, the tower itself...it wasn't there. All that was there was the single floating island that Master Yen Sid had lived.

"No...!" Mickey whispered, his heart quivering at the sight before him, not wanting to believe what he was seeing. It couldn't be...!

Immediately, he and everyone else landed and exited the gummiship, with Jack taking a glance around his new surroundings and mentally wondered how could there be a floating single island without water, but instead surrounded by colourful clouds, mountains and stars. The rest of the group in the meantime, tried to piece together what happened to the tower and where Master Yen Sid was, before every single one of them noticed what they dreaded.

On the ground, was Yen Sid's sorcerer hat, and next to it on the grass, was a piece of paper. Mickey, seeing that hat he once briefly wore to use magic in his days as an Apprentince, which also caused the tower to become flooded since Mickey back then had been very young and inexperienced, rushed over towards it. The king collasped onto his knees, his breath shaking, his heart feeling like it was being ripped out from his chest, the devastation he had dreaded for a long time having finally come true. For years, in the back of his mind that Mickey would find his mentor just...gone, and he prayed for a long time that it wouldn't come to pass.

Not seeing Zack slowly approach and pick up the paper, Mickey hesitatedly picked up Yen Sid's hat, and with his bottom lip quivering at the devastation, he hugged it close to his chest and began to sob, tears sliding free. Sora lowered his head, shaking his head. He didn't want to believe that Yen Sid was gone. At this moment, he wished so badly that all of this was nothing more than a sick nightmare, and for a brief moment, he wondered if he really was trapped in a nightmare, still within the Realm of Sleep, and had actually been caught in Xehanort's grasp after all, and he would suddenly become a vessel. Everyone else were saddened in their own ways, as Donald sobbed pathetically, while Goofy hugged him, tears falling freely as well.

"He took him..." Zack muttered at last, causing everyone else to gaze up at him, with sorrow and anger in his tone. "He took him and the others...!"

"Who?" Vincent questioned.

Zack was heaving hard, trying to hold in his own emotions that were threatening to crack, before he finally managed, his throat choaking with tears. "That guy, Aced. He has Yen Sid, and even Angeal and Genesis...!"

Skuld immediately went over and plucked the letter from Zack's fingers, before reading it herself, her expression turning to sorrow and guilt. Once she was finished, she announced, "It gets worse...he blocked off worlds that had strong light, even two that were still recovering from Darkness. He even made a list on it."

When she held up the paper for everyone to see, devastation and guilt piled onto more devasation and guilt.

Worlds that were blocked off from them unless they would find the power to free them from the most powerful walls Aced somehow had the power to create, were listed on the letter:

Disney Castle.

Destiny Islands.

"Then...where can we go now?" Roxas asked, devastated.

"We can't go back to Radiant Garden, not yet." Cloud muttered.

Reno sighed, rubbing the back of his neck before saying, "Looks like Midgar's our only optain for now. Gotta check on Prez' and everybody else there, right?"

Even though they didn't want to admit it, Reno was right. It became clear to them that Jack was not the only one who was on exile from one world. Now Sora, Riku, Kairi, Donald, Goofy and Mickey were stuck, unable to return to their worlds since Aced had somehow figured out where they lived and now their worlds were blocked off.

Mickey was still reduced to tears, when Riku approached his friend, and gently placed a hand onto his shoulders. "Mickey...let's go." He whispered.

The king nodded, still cradling Yen Sid's hat. With no one to lead them on what to do next, or any idea on how to solve all this, it felt more like they all lost the war against Chaos and possibily Bhunivelze before it even started. They prevented one war only to land themselves in another.

* * *

An hour later, the sombered heroes arrived in the Headquarters of WRO, which was still in progress of being fixed from the attack of Deepground. Rufus, Reeve, Tseng and Rude greeted them, only to bring about more bad news that made things just as worse.

Shalua and Shelke had escaped, and their only clue was a young man with a Keyblade who had already left in a resolve to find Sora and his friends, only to have disappeared. Skuld knew who he was, but she now dreaded that Aced must've taken him as well.

So with nothing else to do, Sora, Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Ven, Terra, Aqua, Lea, Isa, Myde, Roxas, Xion, Skuld, Reno, Elena, Cloud, Vincent, Zack, and Jack, who was introduced to the Turks, the President(whom Jack felt uneasy with as the younger man reminded him of Beckett, but not as power hungry or cruel), and the Commissioner, were all gathered in the lounge area of the building, sitting around in guilt, sorrow and loss. The minutes passed, nobody said a word.

When news spread, it was natural that not even Rufus or Tseng were immune to what the others were feeling. Mickey hadn't said a single word, as he was too upset that Yen Sid had been kidnapped, or has much as he didn't want to voice it, was most likely struck down by Aced, just as Xehanort had done to Master Eraqus twelve years ago.

Reno and Tseng were passing mugs of hot chocolate and coffee, and for Jack, a bottle of wine since this world lacked Rum which was hard to buy these days in Edge, passing them to others. Kairi half-heartedly shook her head in rejection when Reno came to her, only for the redhaired Turk to say, unusually gently but understandably, "Hey, c'mon. Ya' gotta dry those tears of yours."

Too exhausted and upset to argue, Kairi took one of the mugs of hot chocolate.

Similiar thing was done as Tseng approached Mickey who shook his head, his tears still falling. The Turk leader told him softly, "It's to calm your nerves and warm yourself."

The king sighed, too upset and tired to argue and generously took the last mug of hot chocolate. Still, Mickey felt that the entire thing was his fault. The last thing he said to Yen Sid was that they would come back with answers, but now felt more than useless.

For once, even Jack wasn't in the mood for achohol. He lost the Black Pearl. He was exiled from his own world. He was feeling guilty that now even some of his friends couldn't go home either, all because of one, bloody, crazy Keyblade wielder who might as well have won the battle against them and would take over the Realm of Light. The pirate couldn't even summon his Keyblade.

Lea sighed, worried sick about Namine, but knew that the risk of heading straight towards Radiant Garden was too high and he could only trust Leon to take care of her until they figured out something. "When Shalua said that the eight of us weren't meant to be saved so that the worlds could be protected...I can't help but feel like that she's right. Now I feel bad in having gotten my heart back." He said, miserably.

"Just as I feel guilty for what happened in the Caribbean." Jack muttered sadly in agreement.

"Maybe everything we did...maybe it was all for nothing." Sora muttered in guilt as he leaned against the wall, head facing the floor. "Maybe this whole thing is my fault."

"Might as well say that Xehanort got what he wanted after all." Roxas sighed. "He wanted the worlds to plauge into darkness, one way or another, and even though he's gone, he got what he wanted."

Isa shook his head in disagreement, "No. He didn't get what he fully wanted. He didn't get the X-Blade, and the Keyblade War hasn't started. Still, perhaps it's because of us that things had come to this."

"Even I feel more screwed up then anything else." Myde said miserably.

"It doesn't matter." Cloud said, somberly. "Aced has advantage against us, and we don't have a clue on how to fix it."

"This is all my fault." Terra said, in guilt and sadness, and self-disgust. He clutched his fist in anger at himself, but more than that, it was guilt than anything else. "It's because of me that Xehanort had started all of this. I was gullible, stupid and naive, and too weak to go up against him."

Aqua, having been reduced to tears as well, said guiltily, "And it was my mistake to have set Xehanort free, taking his place to be trapped in the Realm of Darkness. I never should've dove into the darkness. But all I wanted was to save Terra...and because of that...I'm the one who doomed the Realm of Light."

Lea sighed, leaning back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling, finally concluding, "Let's face it, guys. We've all pretty much screwed up big time, one way or another."

"Yeah, but the biggest screw up around here is me." Ven finally spoke up. "Xehanort used me as a starter to make the X-Blade. Worse part is, I never should've let my heart go to Sora's heart."

"Come again?" Jack asked, blinking in confusion. Where had that come from?

"When Ven lost his heart, it went into my heart for safe keeping until a short time ago." Sora explained, and when Jack gazed up at him, he continued, "I was four at the time and I didn't even know it until just days ago. For some reason, when Xehanort extracted the darkness from Ven's heart, at birth, my own heart joined with his, and kept him alive for sometime."

Jack's face faulted to even more confusion, before muttering, "And I thought the heart of Davy Jones was complicated as it was."

"You're tellin' me." Reno agreed as he layed on another couch, his hands clasped behind his head. "Who've thunk that kid was _that_ special?"

Sora sighed, "I don't feel special right now, though. More like a thorn in everybody's side."

"The Master of Masters. Did he plan this all along?" Skuld finally spoke up, thought.

This alone was enough to get everyone else's attentions as even those who were still reduced into tears, gazed up at the young girl, as Xion asked, "The Master of Masters?"

"Who is he?" Roxas asked.

"The one who started all of this." Skuld began, shaking her head as she explained, "Even know, I still don't know much about him. All I do know is, he was the Keyblade Master of the six Foretellers, before the Keyblade War started. He disappeared after the five unions were formed, as did the sixth Foreteller, Luxu."

"Unions?" Kairi blinked.

Ven's brow furrowed in confusion, before muttering, "Why does that sound so...familiar?"

"Because you and I were both there in that year, Ven." Skuld answered, deciding that, memory or no memory, she had to tell the truth. "We were both Keyblade wielders of two of the five Unions, hundreds of years ago, and...two of the five new Foretellers chosen by Master Ava, to lead the Dandelions."

Silence filled up the room, before most of the group glanced back and forth between Skuld and Ven, until they, and even Vincent and Ven himself, all exclaimed in shock, confusion and disbelief, "WHAAAT!?/HUH!?/EH!?/The HELL!?"

"You mean to tell us that the two of you were in the first Keyblade War Xehanort's been wantin' to know about!?" Lea exclaimed.

"No way. There's no way in a million that would've happened!" Myde shook his head in disbelief.

"Not having fought, as the war itself had no survivors of those who fought in it." Skuld nodded, sighing in guilt. "The Dandelions were to leave the world to keep the light alive and rebuilt the world. Our memories of the tragedy were lost because it was law that no one would remember it. As a result, I don't remember much about it. Neither do Ven, or Emepher. It was law that no one else would remember it."

"To prevent history from repeating itself." Mickey realised, speaking up for the first time. "So the X-Blade was not the real reason why the first Keyblade War started in the first place."

"No." Skuld shook her head. "Master Aced was one of the Foretellers, but, there was a traitor among the unions, and soon the Foretellers fought against each other, and then so did most of our allies. Only those chosen to become Dandelions survived. Even Master Ava disappeared."

"But I don't get it. How was I there and I don't remember much about it?" Ven asked, shocked beyond belief. If that was true...then that meant he was actually a lot older than even Vincent- _way_ older.

Skuld shared a glance with Ven, and said, "You were chosen by Master Ava too, Ven. The third one to have arrived after the war, in fact. I was the second. Empher was the first, chosen to be our leader. But then...I don't remember much, but the three of us were seperated, and sent into the newly created Realm of Darkness. You were hit the hardest, and since the Realm of Darkness can take away memories if they stray away from those important for too long, they eventually only remember their names."

"Just as I don't remember much while I was in the Realm of Darkness." Aqua realised. "Not even memories are safe from the darkness."

"And since Aqua looks exactly the same as she was twelve years ago since the Realm of Darkness doesn't have Time, Ven must've been trapped there until he somehow managed to escape, and with memories of only of his name, Xehanort found him." Mickey added, firmly as he came to realise the truth. "Either Xehanort knew about Ven's past all along, or it was just a wild guess."

"I'd go for more of the wild guess, considering how the lad ended up having lost his memories." Jack commented.

"So how did you escape from the Realm of Darkness?" Xion asked, curiously.

Skuld shrugged, "The only thing I remember is light, and when I stepped into it, I found myself in a place called Twilight Town with Emepher. The two of us then sensed that something was wrong, and as we can upon up the door of light, that's how we were able to travel to newly created worlds of the future-the real worlds."

"What do you mean by that?" Rufus questioned.

"Long story, but as part of our training, we were sent into created illusions of worlds from the future, fragments of the future. As far as we could understand, they were created by the Book of Prophecies." Skuld answered.

"The Book of Prophecies...a book that can create illusions of worlds." Mickey repeated, before gasping as he realised, "That's why Maleficent came to the castle and held Minnie hostage! Since the Datascape, she thought that I had the Book of Prophecies. She must've thought that Jiminy's Journal was connected to the Book itself."

"Do you have any idea what they're talkin' about, mate?" Jack asked to Reno in utter confusion. The more he was hearing about unheard history, the more confused he became.

Apparently Reno was feeling the same confusion as well, because he sat up and shrugged at the pirate, "Hell if I know."

"So...if we find the Book of Prophecies before Maleficent, that might slow her down, right?" Roxas thought, thinking about it.

"And it might give us a clue about Aced, Chaos and Bhunivelze." Vincent said in agreement, "As it can predict the future."

"But what future can we find?" Cloud asked, doubtedly.

As Sora was hearing this, the more determined he suddenly became, as he came to a realization. Maleficent, Chaos, Aced and possibily Bhunivelze were slowly taking over the worlds and here he was, just sitting around moping, because of a few failures and losses. This wasn't him, and he knew it. More than anything, he felt that something had to be done to set things right. He made promises, and he hated breaking them.

With a nod, the young Keyblade Master spoke up, "Well, whatever! If the Book of Prophecies really does still exist, like Vincent said, maybe it'll help us get a bit of a head start!" causing everyone to gaze at him.

"You know what? You're right." Riku said, after a few moments with reanewed hope. "We'll travel to other worlds and keep Maleficent, Aced and Chaos at bay and at the same time, find the book and solve all of this as much as we can."

"Yeah!" Sora said, in agreement.

This seemed to finally lighten the mood around the room, as everyone else all slowly came to a mental agreement that this was their best shot for the upcoming battle ahead. With nods and agreements of determination, Lea then chuckled and teasingly asked to Riku, "Okay, who are you and what have you done to Riku?"

"Huh?" Riku asked, confused.

Even Kairi giggled, and commented, "Yeah, you're sounding just like Sora."

While Sora himself smirked as he also realised this, Riku smirked as well, saying, "Should I be flattered? Thanks to this sap, I'm tired of being the responsible adult. It's more fun doing what my heart says. Kind of Sora-esuaqe."

"Oh, thanks!" Sora said sarcastically, but still laughed, which was echoed by everyone else, even those who were in tears, but were now dryed up and filled with anewed hope.

"Sora..." Mickey began as he finally understood the meaning of Namine's words. "I think you just saved all of us from our hurting. Even though Master Yen Sid isn't here to lead us, you still managed to give us hope and recovery to move on."

"I did?" Sora blinked, confused.

Even Jack smiled, "Aye, mate. You always put up the bright side of things."

"I can see why you have so many friends, young man." Rufus admitted in agreement. "You have such optisim that drives away the sorrow when you think of something when a plan is put into motion."

"Well...I guess that's just me." Sora said, bashfully, rubbing the back of his head.

"Even though you can't do much on your own. You're just a half-pint." Donald commented.

"Hey!"

"But with all us put together, we make a full pint!" Goofy added.

Sora rolled his eyes, but couldn't help but agree, "Pint and a half."

Aqua giggled, before saying as she remembered, "That reminds me, Hades said something about speaking to Zeus about Bhunivelze. Even though I'm not sure if he was telling the truth, but maybe we should head back to the Coliseum to ask."

"Oh yeah!" Ven remembered, perking up, "Hercules would know that! Zeus is his father, last I remembered him telling me twelve years ago."

"Say what?" Reno asked, "Come again?"

Realising what Ven was saying, Sora grinned happily, before he mimicked Herc's muscle reflexs, which freaked out Jack a little as the pirate stared at the seemingly crazy teenager do this, while Zack said, "That's right. Herc's a True Hero, and before I died and got stuck in the Underworld, he had his powers taken away before he got them back and even saved Zeus and the other gods from Hades."

"He even saved me one time two years ago. I think we're on the right track." Cloud said in agreement.

"Hey, maybe Zeus might even give us a clue on how to get rid of the black spot on your hand, Jack." Roxas suddenly throught up as he and everyone else stood up as well.

While Jack doubted that this 'Zeus', which, if we recalled correctly, as the King of the Gods as he read up in ancient myths during his teenage years, he shrugged, "Might be possible."

But as he pointed at Roxas in agreement, as he unexpectedly flicked his wrist, Jack had little warning as he felt a very unusual tingle run down his right arm, alarming him as all of the sudden, as his hand was stretched out, golden light flared out of his hand and to his shock, a Keyblade appeared, one with a hilt that was very similiar to the hilt of his sword, the blade black and silver, the teeth bearing a pirate symbol skull, and the key-chaint that resembled to his Compass, while he cried out a soft, "Ah!"

"WHOOOOAAA!" Everyone else, even Vincent, Reno, Rude, Rufus and Tseng all exclaimed in shock and surprise at the display of the new Keyblade.

Most of them had their mouths gapped open, unable to form words, until finally, Terra was able to mutter, "...Didn't see that coming."

"I'll say." Elena said, just as shocked.

Even Jack was speech at the display of his new Keyblade, which meant, given the time was given, freed him from his dept as he glanced at his left hand as the bandage had been removed, and the black spot that was seeped into his skin vanished completely for the second time this month, this time permently. Gazing at the Keyblade again, he could only mutter two words.

"That's interesting."

* * *

So with Jack now being a Keyblade wielder, rather than sending him off to Merlin as it would cause some trouble, instead, the group opted to have him, Lea, Isa, Roxas, Xion and Kairi to join Sora, Riku, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Aqua, Ven, Terra and Skuld, and even Myde who asked to come along to redeem himself, on the Gummiship towards the Lanes Between, while Cloud, Vincent, Zack, and the Turks remained behind in Midgar to research more on the Lifestream with Reeve's help.

Only problem was, Sora's group were stuck, unable to come up with something. With Sora at the driver's steering seat, he slumped into the chair, groaning, "How do we get there now?"

"What!? I thought you knew!" Donald exclaimed.

"I guess since we left Port Royal, the old gateways had closed up." Goofy thought, worriedly.

"Aced must've done this. But we can't just give up now." Mickey said, thinking deeply.

"Well, go on then!" Jack said, impaitently at the Keyblade wielders. "You lot are the professional travellers, savvy?"

Lea rolled his eyes, saying, "Give us a break."

"Yeah, these things take time." Sora grumbled in agreement.

"And since our armor isn't much use since we can't carry passengers, I don't think we're much of a help." Terra sighed, with Ven and Aqua both nodding in agreement.

"Well, we've figured out how to travel to other worlds before, we can do it again, right?" Kairi pointed out, gazing at everyone in the room, as Sora stood from his seat and thought deeply.

Everyone thought deepily, and just before even Skuld could say anything, Donald asked impaitently, "Well?"

"Oh, for Moogle's sake, we're thinking!" Xion sighed, annoyed.

That's when Mickey remembered something very important, and thought that maybe this could help, considering how they always trusted their hearts. So, he spoke up wisely, "May our Hearts be our Guiding Keys." which got everyone else's attentions.

"Isn't that what that Aced fellow said?" Jack asked, curiously, before admitting, "Even though I've said it myself before I went back to the Black Pearl."

"Really?" Sora asked, muttered in confusion, turning to Donald and asked with one-shoulder shrug, "Ring any bells?" only for Donald to shrug, dumbfounded.

"Sounds kind of catchy." Myde thought, crossing his arms in thought. "And it kinda makes sense too."

"Hey, that's what Master Yen Sid said to ya all the time, yer Majesty." Goofy remembered.

"Now that's something no one's said in ages." Aqua smiled, with Terra and even Ven nodding in agreement.

"So what's that about anyway?" Lea asked.

Mickey explained, "Keyblade wielders used to say that to each other all the time. It's somethin' I wanted to remember."

"The Foretellers used to say that all the time too." Skuld spoke up, "Because of that, it's what allowed us to do what our hearts told us."

"Well, that certainly explains everything." Isa thought.

The more Jack thought about it, the more he now fully understood and was glad to have said it himself earlier. He shrugged, muttering, "I like it. Simple, easy to remember."

"May my Heart be my Guiding Key." Sora muttered to himself. It was a good ring to it, and plus, it made even more sense since he always followed his heart. And it did also lead him to his friends.

That's when an idea and realization formed in his mind, as he smiled happily, before returning to his seat and exclaimed, "I've got it!" as he summoned his Kingdom Key Keyblade.

As Sora thrusted it out, point forward, the tip of the blade lit up as it followed his heart's direction. In the sea of stars in front of the gummiship, a massive portal appeared before them, opening up what the group realised was a Gate, as most of the group exclaimed it's pressence, realising that Sora had made his heart be his guiding key and that was their entry to their next destination.

"You did it, Sora!" Mickey exclaimed happily.

"Way to go!" Riku cheered.

Sora grinned as he sat in the chair again, cheering to himself, "Yes! Olympus Coliseum, here we come!" gearing up the gummiship, before flying it and everyone in it towards the gate, onward to their next big adventure.

Which was the adventure that would begin the journey towards the final battle as well as putting the fate of the Realm of Light in Sora's hands once more, as well as future rescues and more discoveries to be made. The fates of those who went missing remains unknown, but soon that would be sovled on the road ahead.

 _ **RECONNECT  
KINGDOM HEARTS:**_

 _ **KINGDOM HEARTS III: SECOND WAR.**_

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry that I made the fates of Yen Sid, Angeal and Genesis unclear, but I'm saving that as well as another revolution for my version of KH3 which will be my next project sometime in the future. Until then, thank you all for the support and love for this story and sorry that it took so long to finish, but now it's deemed done.**

 **I will see you in my other stories and future stories yet to come. Until then, may Kingdom Hearts and the Lifestream guide you.**


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